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UNIVERSITY  OF  MICHIGAN 


J^fiifosopfiitcaf  t^afisrs 


Second  Series,  No.  4. 


Tlie  Ethics  of  Bisliop  Butler  and  Iiiinianiiel  Kant. 


BY- 


WEBSTER    Cook. 


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'THE    ETHICS 


OF 


BISHOP  BUTLER  AND  IMMANUEL  KANT, 


BY 


W&BSXER  Cook:. 


159787 


Contents. 


PAGE 

List  of  Authors,  .  .  .  .  iii,  iv 

A.  Kant,     ......  1 

Introductory,     ......  1 

I.  The  Doctrine  of  Duty,  ...  3 

II.  The  Moral  Law, 9 

III.  The  Categorical  Imperative,  .  .  16 

IV.  The  Doctrine  of  Freedom,        ...         21 

B.  Butler, 27 

I.  Butler's  Conception  of  Virtue,     .  .        "    .         27 

II.  Butler  and  Kant,        ....  36 


Works  Read  or  Consulted. 


Kant:     Critique  of  Pure  Eeason;    Miiller's  Translation. 

Ethical  Works,  translated  by  Abbott:* 

Fundamental  Principles  of  the  Metaphysic  of 
Ethics ;  Critique  of  Practical  Keason ;  Portions  of 
Philosophy  of  Religion. 

Metaphysics  of  Ethics;  Calderwood's  Semple's  Tr. 

Prolegomena;  Bolin  Philosophical  Library. 

Werke;  Ed.  Hart.     1868. 
Lectures  on  Kant's  Ethics,  by  T.  H.  Green;  Philosophical 

Works,  Vol.  II. 
Philosophy  of  Kant;  Edward  Caird. 
Kant  and  his 'English  Critics;  Professor  John  Watson. 
Kant:     William  Wallace;  Blackwood  Phil.  Classics. 
Philosphy  of  Kant;    Kuno  Fischer,    Journal  Spec.  Phil. 

April,  1886. 
Lesser   Logic   of     Hegel,    especially  portions   on   Kant; 

Wallace. 
Encyclopedia  Britannica,  Articles  Kant  and  Butler. 
Butler's  Analogy  and  Sermons;  Complete  Works,  Robei-t 

Carter  &  Bros.,  N.  Y. 
Butler:     Rev.  W.  Lucas  Collins,  Blackwood  Phil.  Classics. 
Butler  and  the  Zeit-  Geist;  Matthew  Arnold,  "Last  Essays 

on  Church  and  Religion." 

*This  work  is  referred  to  in  the  text  hv  the  abbreviation  Ab. 


IV  WORKS   READ   AND   CONSULTED. 

Prolegomena  to  Ethics;  T.  H.  Green. 

Ethical  Studies;  F.  H.  Bradley. 

Types  of  Ethical  Theory;  Dr.  Martinean,  Vol.  II,  "Ideo- 

psychological  Ethics." 
"  Characteristics ;"  Shaf tsbury. 
Origin  of  Evil;  Shaf  tsbury. 

Philosophy  of  Francis  Hutcheson;  London,  1755. 
Constructive  Ethics;  W.  L.  Courtney. 
Nichomachean  Ethics  of  Aristotle;  Peter's  Translation. 
Methods  of  Ethics;  Henry  Sidgwick. 
Science  of  Ethics;  Leslie  Stephen. 
Data  of  Ethics;  Herbert  Spencer. 
Criticism  of    Spencer  and    Lewes;    T.   H.   Green;    Phil 

Works,  Vol.  I;  Cont.  Kev.  Vols,  xxxi,  xxxii. 


or  THE  \. 

UNIVERSITY. .^ 


KANT, 


INTRODUCTORY. 


Kant  opens  the  first  of  his  ethical  treatises  with  the 
now  famous  statement,  "  Nothing  can  possibly  be  con- 
ceived in  the  world  or  even  out  of  it,  which  can  be  called 
good  without  qualification  except  the  Good  Will,"  and  in 
developing  the  notion  of  the  good  will  he  first  brings 
clearly  into  view  the  great  difficulty  of  Idealistic  ethics. 
For  when  we  are  told  that  somewhat  is  good,  we  at  once 
ask  for  w^hat  is  it  good.  If  it  is  good  at  all,  it  must  be 
good  for  something,  and  we  thus  conclude  with  Butler  that 
its  purpose  or  end  must  be  outside  of  or  beyond  itself. 
This  seems  especially  true  of  the  will.  As  action,  it  is 
necessarily  determined  to  some  end,  and  its  goodness 
would  seem  to  consist  in  its  adaptation  to  its  purpose.  With 
Hedonistic  and  Theological  ethical  writers  ( if  there  is  any 
fundamental  distinction  between  these )  such  has  always 
been  the  view  of  will,  but  Kant  on  the  contrary  tells  us 
that  the  good  will  is  good  in  itself,  not  for  anything  /^ 
beyond.  '  It  is  good  not  because  of  what  it  can  accomplish, 
but  simply  by  virtue  of  the  volition,'  'and  considered 
by  itself  must  be  esteemed  higher  than  anything  that  can 
be  brought  about  by  it.'  Q'Like  a  jewel  it  has  its  value  i^ 
wholly  in  itself.'  Here  then  Kant  comes  in  direct  oppo-  • 
sition  to  Hedonism.     Happiness,  here  or   hereafter,  the 


c'^'S-  '  *  kant  and  butler. 

gratification  of  any  or  all  the  inclinations,  is  not  the  end 
according  to  which  the  Good  Will  is  determined  as  good. 
It  is  wholly  determined  to  itself,  is  good  in  itself,  and 
thus,  and  this  is  the  difficulty  which  here  emerges,  it  must 
be  the  end  of  its  own  action.  3 

If,  as  empirical  ethics  h^s  always  assumed,  will  is  simply 
the  response  to  some  sensuous  impulse,  and  its  whole  nature 
consists  in  its  effort  for  sensuous  gratification,  manifestly  the 
\  only  end  it  can  have  is  the  gratification  it  seeks.  To  speak  of 
it  as  its  own  end  is  to  use  words  that  can  have  no  meaning. 
But  is  this  the  whole  nature  of  will,  or  the  nature  of  will 
at  all?  Or,  what  is  only  another  form  of  the  same  ques- 
tion, is  man  merely  a  sentient  being,  and  does  his  whole 
nature  consist  in  seeking  the  gratification  of  his  inclin- 
ations? Some  such  assumption  as  this  Hedonism  must 
always  make.  Reason,  it  must  say,  does  not  change  man's 
essential  nature.  Want  and  desire  remain  the  same,  man 
must  still  find  his  happiness  in  their  satisfaction.  Reason, 
morally  considered,  can  only  modify  actions,  so  that,  in- 
stead of  blindly  following  his  impulses,  man  will  stop  to 
enquire  whether  they  will,  after  all,  lead  to  greatest  grati- 
fication. The  increasing  use  of  reason  will  thus  postpone 
'immediate  ends'  for  'more  remote,'  because  it  will  be 
seen  that  thereby  a  greater  sum  of  happiness  or  gratifica- 
tions will  be  obtained.  Reason  does  not  in  the  least  change 
the  nature  of  the  end  or  the  character  of  the  actions,  and 
the  essential  nature  of  man  is  just  what  it  would  be  with- 
out reason.  J 

But  Kant  replies  that  this  is  neither  the  nature  of  will 
nor  of  the  rational  being.     From  whatever  point  of  view 
-it^^we  choose  to  regard  man,  reason  gives  to  him  his  distinc- 
tive character.     Even  for  knowledge  reason  is  necessary 
and   constitutive.     It  is  not  simply  engaged  in  reasoning 


INTRODUCTORY.  3 

about  objects  given  us  in  nature,  but  itself  makes  for  us  a 
nature  and  all  the  individual  objects  in  nature.     Through  ^ 
reason  alone  also  is  morality  possible,  and  it  is  here  even  * 
in  a  higher   sense   constitutive.     Kant   defines  reason  as  * 
the  faculty  of  acting  according  to  the  conception  of  ends,!/^ 
or  of  laws  derived  from  these  ends,  that  is,  according  to 
ideas.     Practical  reason  is  thus  identical  with  will,  as  the  l 
faculty  of  action  according  to  the  conception  of  an  end.       | 
This   result  can  be    accepted    in  some  sense   by    all 
schools  of  moralists.     There  can  be  no  doubt   that   our 
actions  are  directed  to  the  attainment  of  ends  already  con- 
ceived, by  the  idea  of  something  desired  or  desirable,  of 
something  the  possession  of  which  will  give  satisfaction. 
But  the  real  point  at  issue  is  whether  the  desirableness  of     \ 
every  object  depends  upon  the  gratification  of  some  incli- 
nation, as  ascertained   by  some  previous  experience,  or 
whether  reason  itself  can  constitute  it  desirable.     Kant's  ^ 
answer  is  in  effect  to  affirm  this  latter  position,  for  it  is 
this  he  means  when  he  says  pure  reason  can  be  practical, 
and  it  is  only  ih.  this  sense  that  moral  reason  can  be  said 
to  be  constitutive.     How  reason  is  practical,  in  what  way 
it  affects  or  constitutes  the  objects  of  the  will,  we  shall  see 
in  the  following  discussions. 


THE    DOCTRINE   OF    DUTY. 


In  the  discussion  of  duty,  Kant's  first  distinction  is  ' 
between  actions  done  from  duty  and  those  done  from  ' 
inclination,  and  he  concludes  that  only  the  former  have  ' 
moral  w^orth.     Actions  may  be  outwardly  conformable  tot- 


4  KANT   AND    BUTLER. 

what  duty  requires,  but  if  done  from  inclination,  from  an 
impulse  or  from  the  anticipation  of  the  pleasure  whicli 
they  will  yield,  instead  of  from  duty,  they  are  still  not 
moral.  This  is  true  even  of  beneficent  actions;  to  act 
'-^from  duty  alone  can  give  moral  worth.  That  is  to  say,  we 
can  not  look  for  such  worth  in  the  particular  springs  of 
action.  That  worth  can  lie  neither  in  the  immediate  pur- 
poses we  have  in  view  nor  in  their  eif ects  regarded  as  ends 
and  springs  of  the  will.    In  what,  then,  can  it  lie?    Solely 

^in  the  principle  of  volition  itself.  "For  the  will  stands 
between  its  a  priori  principle  which  is  formal  and  its  a 
poateviorl  spring  which  is  material  as  between  two  roads, 
and  as  it  must  be  determined  by  something,  it  follows  that 
it  must  be  determined  by  the  formal  principle  of  volition 
when  an  action  is  done  from  duty,  in  which  case  every 
material  principle  has  been  withdrawn  from  it.''  (Ab.  p. 
'22. )  "But  in  excluding  the  effect  of  inclination  there 
remains'  nothing  except  objectively  law,  and  subjectively 
pure  respect  for  t/te  law,  by  which  action  can  be  determined," 

>  and  "Duty  is  the  necessity  of  acting  from  respect  for  the 

^law."  (Ab.  p.  22.)  In  other  words,  'The  preeminent 
good  which  we  call  moral  can  consist  in  nothing  else  than 
the  eonception  of  law  in  so  far  as  this  conception,  and  not 
the  expected  effect,  determines  the  will.' 

I  This  conclusion  leads  at  once  to  the  inquiry  as  to  how 
we  can  act  from  respect  for  the  law/ and  as  to  the  nature  of 
the  law  itself.  The  latter  question  belongs  to  a  subsequent 
section;  the  former,  as  we  can  readily  see,  is  involved  in 
the  question  as  to  the  determination  of  the  will.  In  wjiat 
way,  thei^,  in  thf^  v^^'^^  r^nfny.miTiof]  f,.^  .^^n^n'"*  In  general, 
we  may  say  the  will  is  always  determined  by  desire,  and 
more  specifically,  such  desire  is  always  for  some  particular 
end  or  object.     But  is  not  this  to  deny  the  possibilitv  of 


THE  DOCTRIKE  OF  DUTY.  5 

duty  as  Kant  has  defined  it?  For  desire  is  inclination, 
and  how,  then,  can  there  ^e_  action  from  duty  as  distinct 
from_  inclination  ?  'Is  not  the  conception  of  duty  as  action 
from  respect  for  the  law  a  meaningless  abstraction? 

In  reply  we  may  say,  the  conception  of  duty  is  univer-  ^ 
sal  among  men,  and  its  most  immediate  apprehension  is, 
precisely  as  Kant  has  defined  it,  as  action  from  respect  for 
the  law.*  And  when  we  look  more  closely  into  the  nature 
of  desire,  we  see  that  it  is  only  through  a  confusion 
that  it  has  ever  been  questioned.  Desire  is  not  mere 
inclination.  We  may  say  that  a  beast  seeks  food  from 
inclination  and  call  that  desire,  but  we  can  not  in  the 
same  sense  say  that  a  rational  being  seeks  an  object  from 
desire.  The  characteristic  of  a  rational  being  is  that  he  dis- 
tinguishes himself  from  all  his  inclinations,  and  so  gives 
them  an  entirely  new  character.  Reason  from  its  very 
nature  is  self-conscious,  and  the  rational  being  is  thus 
conscious  of  a  self  which  in  all  his  inclinations  he  is  seek- 
ing to  satisfy.  Inclination  may  prompt  in  many  directions, 
but  unless  in  its  gratification  it  is  conceived  that  self-i^ 
satisfaction  can  be  found,  it  does  not  become  a  desire. 
The  various  inclinations  are  given  unity  in  the  one  con- 
scious subject,  which  distinguishes  itself  fi-om  them,  and 
may  seek  its  own  satisfaction  through  them,  but  what  is 
sought  is  always  this  satisfaction,  and  not  the  mere  grati-' 
fication  of  the  inclinations.  This  constitutes  the  very 
nature  of  desire,  in  which  reason  is  always  present.  To 
asseii;  the  same  thing  in  other  words,  there  is  but  one  self 
and  it  is  always  one.  If  it  has  many  sides,  properties,  or 
distinctive  characters,  it  is  in  these  that  its  unity  consists. 
Apart  from  them  it  is  nothing,  as  are  they  apart  from  it.    All 

*Tiie  expression,  "respect  for  the  law."  used  here  and  elsewhere,  daaajjot 
conu<'»  thf*  i\n^jnu-i*4t-«»<^o-i<^ifY  jmy'i'^lt  '^  f^"^Y'  ^^'  ^^  expresses  the  idea  of  duty 
so  far  as  wf»  are  now  ronsiderinpr  it. 


()  KANT    ANT)    BUTLER. 

activities  must  be  activities  of  the  self;  all  gratifications 
must  be  gratifications  of  the  self,  and  it  is  only  the  desire 
for  self-satisfaction  that  can  prompt  to  seek  any  gratifica- 
tions. 

As  desire  receives  its  nature  from  the  self -distinguish- 
ing character  of  man,  so  also  must  the  object  of  desire.  What 
it  is  that  he  desires  can  not  be  something  external  to  himself 
As  the  nature  of  desire  is  to  seek  self-satisfation,  its  object 
must  be  that  form  of  self  in  which  it  is  conceived  satis- 
faction will  be  found.    It  is  not  the  existence  of  something 
that  is  desired,  but  the  possession  or  enjoyment  of  some- 
thing, or  more  precisely,  the  self    in  that  possession  or 
enjoyment.     Thus  the  object  of  desire  can  have  no  real 
/existence.     So  long  as  it  is  desired  it  exists  only  in  idea, 
I  and  the  action  of  will  to  which  the  desire  prompts  is  only  ^ 
\the  effort  to  make  the  idea  actual,  to  give  it  real  existence. 
But  as  the  object  of  desire  is  an   idea  of  some  form  of 
self  in  which  satisfaction  is  sought,  the  effort  to  make  it 
real   becomes  simply  the  effort   for  some  form  of    self- 
realization.    Now,  at  first  in  the  history  of  rational  nature, 
self-satisfaction  is  conceived  to  be  synonymous  with  grati- 
fication.    The  self    to  be  realized  is  identified  with  the 
objects  of  the  inclinations  and  is  as  various  in  its  forms 
as  the  inclinations  themselves.    But  with  development  the 
individual  more   clearly  distinguishes  himself    from  his 
/inclinations,  and  conceives  some  general  form  of  self  in 
I  which  alone  he  imagines  satisfaction  will  be  found.     Thus 
\fche  idea  of  self  gradually  becomes  an  ideal  self,  and  the 
ideal  assumes  more  and  more  definite  form  with  the  fuller 
development  of    individual  character.     This  ideal  is  more 
or  less  present  in  all  particular  objects  of  desire;  it  con- 
stitutes them  what  to  the  individual  they  are,  and  through 
it   thev   become    desirable.      Thus   reas<in    as    the   self- 


V  -..?;.^ 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF   DUTY.  7 

conscious  principle  becomes  truly  constitutive.     Through  — 
the  conception  of  an  ideal  end,  present  in  all  particular 
ends,  it  renders  those  ends  themselves  desirable,  and  the 
rational  being  must  thus  act  from  respect  for  the  law  of 
this  ideal,  a  law  which  reason  imposes. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  examine  Kant's  distinction 
between  inclination  and  duty.     First,  it  is  evident  that,  as 
rational,  man  can  not  act  from  mere  inclination,  and  it  is 
only  as  rational  that  he  is  moral.    Then,  on  the  other  hand, 
can  we  still  say  that  actions  proceeding  from  repsect  for 
law  have  moral  worth?     So  far  as  we  now  see,  the  law  isi 
simply  one  imposed  by  an  ideal  end,  and  so  must  derive' 
its     character     from    that    end.       Thus     the     character 
of  an  action  must  ultimately  depend  upon  the  character  of 
the  end  in  which  satisfaction  is  sought.     This  end  itself 
may  be  vicious,  and  actions  determined  thereto  can  not  be 
good.      It  is  not  enough  for  duty,  then,  that  actions  be 
determined  by  respect  for  law.     The  character  of  the  law, 
as     Kant   saw,    must    also  be    taken  into   consideration. 
Thus  the  distinction  between  inclination  and  duty  can  nqi? 
hold  in  the  absolute  sense  in  which  it  was  first  given. 
Action  fi'om  mere  inclination  there  can  not  be  (in  ethics"] 
at  least )  and  action  from  respect  for  law  has  not  necessa-  ' 
rily  moral  worth. 

We  now  need  to  examine  whether  there  is  any  ground 
for  Kant's  distinction.  Dut}^  can  be  defined  as  actioni 
fi'om  respect  for  the  law,  only  when  the  law  itself  isfi 
defined.  But  Kant  defined  the  law  as  the  moral  law,  and 
his  definition  of  duty  must  thus  stand.  His  error  on  this 
side,  then,  consists  in  seeming  to  suppose  that  vicious 
action  can  not  also  be  done  fi*om  respect  for  law.  On  the 
other  hand,  can  we  in  any  sense  speak  of  the  actions  of  a 
j-ational    being  as   actions   from    inclination?     We   have 


KANT  AND  BUTLEK. 


already  seen  that  a  person  may,  as  it  were,  identify  him- 
self with  his  inclinations,  may  seek  his  own  satisfaction 
in  their  gratification  as  they  from  time  to  time  arise.    But 

(while  we  have  not  yet  attempted  to  define  what  the  true 
self  is  which  we  should  seek  to  realize,  it  is  certain  that 
^e  are  not  such  beings  as  can  find  satisfaction  in  the  mere 
/gratification  of  inclinations.  Self-satisfaction  can  not  be 
rfound  in  the  realization  of  such  an  ideal.  But  the  gratifi- 
cation of  the  inclinations,  like  all  other  actions,  may 
become  habitual  and  so  give  character  to  the  individual  so 
seeking  to  satisfy  himself.  Moreover,  such  actions  are 
characterized  by  the  relative  absence  of  any  ideal  end, 
and  so  of  any  ideal  law  from  respect  for  which  they  are 
determined.  Even  if  actions  from  inclination  should  out- 
wardly conform  to  moral  requirements,  or  in  Kant's 
[phrase,  be  legal,  they  still  will  not  possess  moral  worth, 
■  because  not  arising  from  a  conception  of  self  in  which 
morality  can  consist.     We  may  even  say  with  Kant  that 

('an  action  done  from  duty  must  exclude  the  influence  of 
inclination,'  because  in  the  formation  of  our  ideal  inclina- 
tion must  not  enter.    "For  the  mind  of  the  flesh  is  death:" 
"because  the  mind  of  the  flesh  is  enmity  against  God;  for 
it  is  not  subject  to  the  law  of  God,  neither  indeed  can  be.'* 
In  all  this  Kant's  distinction  finds  justification,  but  he 
was  wrong  again  in  seeming  to  hold  that   all   immoral 
actions  can  be  classed  as  done  from  inclination.     Yet  in 
his  second  principle  of  duty  he  points  definitely  to  the 
I  true  distinction,  when  he  says  "that  an  action  done  from 
^jduty  derives  its  moral  Avorth  *  *  *  from  the  maxim  by 
Vhich  it  is  determined."     For  he  immediately  adds  that 
the  character  of   the  maxim  is  determined   by  the  "prin- 
ciple of  volition,"  that  is,  by  the  law  derived- from  the  ideal 
end  in  which  the  satisfaction  is  sought. 


II. 


THE    MORAL    LAW. 


We  have  already  seen  that  it  is  only  through  the  self- 
objectifying  nature  of  the  rational  being  that  his  actions 
can  be  said  to  have  any  moral  character.     The  constant 
eifort  of  such  a  being  is  to  seek  self-satisfaction,  and  it  is 
from  this   fact  alone  that  the  conception  of  action  or  of 
conduct  as  good  or  not  good  can  arise.     With  the  various 
gratifications  obtained  the  self  is  not  satisfied,  and  so  the 
feeling  succeeds  that  there  is  something  higher  and  some- 
thing better,  and  finally  the  idea  arises  that  in  the  realiza- 
tion of  some  form  of  self  alone  can   true  satisfaction  be 
found.      Thus  to  the  conception  of  an  ideal  self  which 
must  be  present  in  all  forms  of  gi-atification,  there  succeeds 
the  further  conception  of  a  true  self,  a  true  ideal,   thei 
realization  of  which  alone  can  yield  complete  satisfaction. 
When  man  comes  to  seek  what  this  true  self  is,  he  comes \ 
to  realize  that  it  must  consist  in  the  fullest  development  1 
of  his  highest  capabilities,  in  the  perfection  of  his  rationali 
or  moral  nature.     But  before  such  a  conception  can  take 
definite  form,  he  has  already  learned  that  ]^^<  ^^mp^t,  s;?if.i.^\ 
factimi  ih  fnunfl   in  yirlrliiiM   njn  ilji  m  (    tn  n  Inir  Tihioli  hfi  ^ 
tfinns  \h(^  law  of  flnfv     Hence  the  first  necessity  is  to  find 
the  nature  of    this   moral   law,    and  this  gives  ?ha]:e  to 
Kant's  first  inquiry. 

As  man  is  distinctively  a  rational  being  an<l  only  as, 
such  moral,  the  moral  law  itself  must  be  derived  from  theTT 
nature  of  reason.     It  can  not  be  derived  from  the  pai-ticu- 
lar  attributes  of  human  nature,  but  must  apply  to  man  only  | 
because  he  is  a  rational  being.     But,  as  Kant  has  demon- 
strated in  the  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  the  essential  nature  Jl 
of  reason  is  its  universality;  hence  the  moral  law  must 


10  KANT    AND    BUTLER. 

be  a  universal  law.  It  must  command  actions  universally 
necessary,  necessary  for  all  rational  beings  under  all  condi- 
tions. We  have  already  seen  in  the  principles  of  duty 
that  the  moral  quality  of  an  action  is  not  determined  by 
the  external  end,  but  must  lie  in  the  inner  or  subjective 
principle  of  volition.  If,  then,  the  moral  law  is  to  be  a 
universal  law,  all  it^caji  ^'^^^T^rr^a^^A  \^  thn^the  inner  spring 
Ipf  Rctir^T^s  be  s^ip^  oa  ^g^^  hH^  ^^^'  ^11  rational  beings  uxidfif 
all  conditions.  In  other  words,  the  maxim  must  be  univer- 
sal, and  the  moral  law  can  contain  only  the  one  necessity 
that  the  maxims  thus  conform  to  a  universal  law.  This 
gives  us  what  Kant  calls  the  first  form  of  the  categorical 
imperative:    "Act  only  on  that  maxim  whereby  thou  canst 

\(at  the  same  time  will  that  it  should  become  a  universal 
law;"  or  "Act  as  if  the  maxim  of  thy  action  were  to  be- 
come by  thy  will  a  Universal  Law  of  Nature."  {  Ab.  p.  55. ) 
As  the  first  consciousness  of  duty  is  as  conformit}^  to  a 
law,  the  statement  of  the  law  is  the,  first  and  most  imme- 
diate answer  to  the  question  of  duty,  but  for  this  very  fact 
it  is  also  the  most  indefinite.     This  Kant  saw.     "It  con- 

I  cerns  not  the  matter  of  an  action  nor  its  intended  result," 
but  its  form  and  principle  alone.  It  is  purely  a  formal  law. 
Kant's  statement  of  the  moral  law  and  his  further  dec- 
laration that  it  is  purely  formal,  give  rise  to  a  certain  difii- 
culty.  A  law  that  contains  nothing  but  the  form  of  com- 
mand, can  command  nothing  in  particular,  would  seem  to 
be  meaningless  or  inconceivable.  But  this  difficulty 
is  not  unanswerable.  First  we  need  to  note  that  the  term 
law  is  here  used  in  a  very  different  sense  from  that  to  which 
the  scientific  use  of  the  term  has  accustomed  us.  We  are 
apt  to  think  of  a  law  as  a  result,  a  mere  uniformity,  derived 
from  the  contemplation  of  objects  already  given  us  in 
nature.     Applying  the  same  method  to  morals,  we  seek  to 


THE    MOllAL    LAW.  11 

derive  the  moral  law  from  the  contemplation  and  classifi- 
cation of  the  various  particular  ends  or  motives  of  action. 
We  wish  to  classify  the  various  ends  of  action  and  label 
them  as  'right'  or  as  'wrong',  or,  failing  of  such  absolute 
division,  we  seek  from  contemplation  of  particular  motives 
to  see  which  should  be  given  moral  preference  as  com- 
pared with  the  others,  c  Or  again,  abstracting  from  their 
differences,  we  seek  to  arrange  all  moral  actions  according 
to  some  principle  of  agreement,  or  to  state  "the  inexpug- 
nable element  of  the  conception,"  (viz.  pleasure  )  on  account 
of  which  all  individual  ends  can  be  classified  as  good. 
But  in  either  case  we  are  overlooking  the  essential  princi- 
ple, and  seeking  for  morality  where  it  can  not  be  found. 
Neither  the  individual  actions  nor  ends  of  actions,  neither) 
the  particular  inclinations  nor  their  particular  objects,  can 
in  themselves  be  classified  as  moral  or  immoral,  or  falh 
within  the  fiekl  of  morality  at  all.}  So  far  are  they  from 
constituting  the  moral  law,  or  the  data  from  which  that 
law  is  derived,  that  whatever  moral  worth  they  can  have  is 
derived  from  that  law.  We  must  completely  change  our 
point  of  view,  or  the  law  will  be  a  mere  formula  and  can 
give  us  no  command. 

This  is  what  Kant  saw,  and  what  he  meant,  when  he 
said  that  we  must  abstract  fi"om  all  particular  ends  of 
actions,  that  the  law  must  be  purely  formal.  For  such  a 
law  can  not  command  any  particular  end  or  act,  and  so 
contains  only  the  command.  But  the  law  left  thus  would 
mean  nothing;  when  we  ask  what  it  does  command,  we 
find  it  impossible  to  give  it  meaning  apart  from  the  source 
from  which  it  is  derived.  As  this  source  is  ^K>ti  the  p"^'- 
ticular  ends,  we  must  next  follow  Kant  u]  th^  ingnii-y  q^J[^  ,y 
whnt  it  ift  A 

"Tlie  will,'*  he  tells  us  again,  "is  the  faculty  of  deter-J 


12  KANT   AND   BUTLER. 

(ining  oneself  to  action  in  accordance  with  the  conception 
of  certain  laws."  (Ab.  p.  64.)  "That  which  serves  the 
will  as  the  objective  ground  of  self-determination  is  the 
end,  and  if  this  is  assigned  by  reason  alone,  it  must  hold  for 
/ 1  all  rational  beings."  If  such  an  end  is  to  be  one  in  which 
complete  self-satisfaction  is  found,  4t  must  have  in  itself 

/  an  absolute  worth'  and  'being  an  end  in  itself  it  must  be 
the  source  of  definite  laws,'  the  possible  source  of  the  cate- 
gorical imperative.  Or,  in  other  words,  "If  there  is  a 
supreme  practical  principle  or,  in  respect  of  the  human 
will,  a  categorical  imperative,  it  must  be  one  which,  drawai 
jfrom  the  conception  of  that  which  is  necessarily  an  end 

,  ,for  every  one  because  it  is  an  end  iii  itself,  constitutes  an 
^objective  principle  of  will,  and  can  therefore  serve  as  a  uni- 
jversal  practical  law.     The  foundation  of  this  principle  is: 

I    \rafio7ial  ii((tHre  exists  as  an  ertd  in  itself y     (  Ab.  p.  66. )   'Ra- 

/     tional  beings  are  therefore  persons,'  and  while  the  moral 

tj  law  does  not  command  any  action  in  particular,  what  it 

<  does  command  is  now  evident.  It  may  be  briefly  expressed 
as  'Be  thyself,'  or  in  the  fuller  formula  of  Kant,  "So  act 
as  to  treat  humanity,  whether  in  thine  own  person,  or  in 

'  that  of  any  other,  in  every  case  as  an  end  withal,  never  as  a 
means  only."     ( Ab.  p.  67. )     And  this  jmnciple  must  be 

I    the  supreme  law  limiting  all  our  subjective  ends. 

But  we  have  not  yet  reached  a  statement  of  the  moral 
law  in  which  we  can  rest.  The  command,  'Be  thyself,' 
implicitly  contains  the  further  imperative,  'Know  thyself.' 
The  two  formulae  for  the  moral  law  point  definitely  to  a 
third  which  transcends  and  comprehends  both.  The  sub- 
ject of  all  ends  is  the  rational  being;  the  objective  princi- 
ple of  morality  lies  in  the  rule  and  its  form  of  univer- 
sality by  which  alone  it  can  be  a  law%  Hence  we 
have  the  essential  or  the  true  natui'e  of  the  rational  being: 


THE    MORAL    LAW.  13 

^^  The  trill  of  every  rational  being  is  a  universally  legislative 
wiliy  (Ab.  p.  70.)  The  will  is  not  only  subject  to  the 
law,  but  so  subject  that  it  must  be  regarded  as  itself  giving 
the  law. 

We  have  here  now  the  most  definite  statement  of  the 
moral  law  which  Kant  has  given  us.  He  has  sought  fur- 
ther to  elucidate  his  i)rinciples  by  his  conception  of  the 
kingdom  of  ends.  Morality,  he  tells  us,  consists  in  refer- 
ring all  actions  to  legislation  which  alone  can  make  such  a 
kingdom  possible.  'Every  maxim  of  will  must  be  referred 
to  every  other  will.'  QBut  were  we  to  attempt  to  apply  the 
law  to  particular  examples,  or  to  deduce  from  it  particular 
actions  or  lines  of  conduct,  we  should  still  find  it  provok- 
ingly  vague  and  unmeaning,  and  Kant  in  his  illustrative 
examples  always  assumes  more  than  the  law  itself  contains. 
This  indefiniteness  of  the  law  has  caused  much  hostile  criti- 
cism.  Thus  it  has  been  said  that  as  a  ride  of  conduct  Kant's 
imperative  is  much  less  definite  than  the  Golden  Rule. 
This  is  perfectly  true,  but  it  would  be  equally  just  to  criti- 
cise the  Golden  Rule  as  a  principle  of  morality.  From 
the  same  cause,  but  with  greater  plausibility,  comes  the 
criticism  of  'Duty  for  Duty's  sake.'  This  phrase  can  be 
shown  to  have  no  meaning,  but  Kant,  in  his  constant  anxiety 
to  show  that  morality  can  not  be  derived  from  the  particu- 
lar ends  of  action,  has  used:  language  that  would  seem  to 
justify  such  criticism.  'Aus  Pflicht,'  or  'handle  pflicht- 
massig,  aus  Pflicht,'  are  frequent  expressions,  but  he  him- 
self has  explaineii  their  meaning,  and  it  is  not  'duty  for 
duty's  sake.'  'From  duty'  he  has  defined  as  'from  respect 
for  the  law,'  and  in  explanation  of  these  phrases  he  has 
given  us  the  truest  description  of  moral  conduct:  "The 
consciousness  of  duty  shall  constitute  the  suflicient  motive 
for  all  actions  in  accordance  with  duty,"  ( Werke.  Ed.  Hart. 


14  KANT    AND    BUTLER. 

vol.  7.  p.  196.)  or  in  the  words  of  Green,  "The  spirit 
expressed  in  the  law  shall  become  the  principle  of  action 
in  man."     (Phil.  Works,  ii.  p.  310.     Cf.  Kom.  viii.  1-11.) 

The  law,  as  we  have  said,  can  have  no  meaning  apart 
/from  the  end  from  which  it  is  deduced,  to  which  it  com- 
sfmands.  Its  command  is  not  'duty  for  duty's  sake,'  but 
^duty  for  the  sake  of  the  end,  viz:  self-realization.  The 
definiteness  of  the  law,  then,  must  depend  upon  the  defi- 
niteness  of  the  conception  of  the  self  to  be  realized.  This 
self  is  the  rational  self,  which  Kant  has  only  defined  as 
the  universally  legislating  will,  as  'the  universal  end,'  'the 
subject  of  all  ends,  that  is,  the  rational  being  himself.' 
(Yid.  Ab.,  pp.  80,  81.)  The  question  that  then  remains 
for  us  is  whether  the  conception  of  rational  nature 
can  be  made  sufficiently  definite  to  serve  as  a  significant 
ideal  for  the  rational  being.  Can  the  idea  of  human 
nature  as  rational  be  given  any  definite  content,  so  as  to 
give  rise  to  a  law  sufficiently  definite  to  command  one 
action  or  line  of  conduct  rather  than  any  other?  It  is  no 
just  ground  of  criticism  on  Kant  that  in  the  "Grundlegung" 
or  Critique  of  Practical  Reason  he  has  not  answered  this 
question.  Anything  beyond  the  deduction  of  the  formulae 
for  the  moral  law  was  beside  his  avowed  purpose.  But  it 
will  be  a  just  criticism  if  the  question  admits  of  no 
answer,  because  then  his  formulae  must  always  remain  as 
vague  and  unmeaning  as  they  at  first  appear. 

Were  we  to  regard  the  conception  of  'humanity'  as  a 
vague  and  unreal  abstraction,  a  tendency  which  Kant  may 
not  always  have  fully  overcome,  'to  treat  human  nature  as 
an  end,'  would  be  a  phrase  not  capable  of  translation  into 
any  definite  fact  of  life.  But  Kant  tells  us  that  rational 
or  human  nature  means  the  rational  subject  himself,  and 
so  the  question  takes  concrete  form.     What  human  nature 


THE    MOltAL    LAW.  15 

as  thus  understood  ideally  is  we  can  tell  only  so  far  as  we 
can  tell  what  man's  capability  is,  and  what  this  capability 
is  we  can  say  with  certainty  only  so  far  as  it  is  ali*eady 
realized.  Were  it  entireh'  unrealized  we  could  say  noth- 
ing about  it.  But  it  is  not  thus  unrealized,  and  we  can 
give  definite  content  to  the  idea  of  human  nature  from  the 
moral  growi;h  history  has  already  illustrated.  AYe  are 
able  to  tell  in  a  degree  what  human  nature  ideally  and  so 
really  is  from  what  it  has  already  become,  and  thus  to 
make  the  idea  so  far  concrete  and  actual.  Inasmuch  asl 
the  true  nature  of  man,  as  Kant  tells  us,  is  the  uniTersal,/ 
we  can  deduce  the  moral  ideal  from  the  actual  humanity 
about  us,  and  it  thus  becomes  a  sufficiently  significant  erd 
of  moral  endeavor. 

So,  too,  we  can  see  the  fuller  meaning  of  the  ''univer- 
sally legislative  will,"  or  of  the  kingdom  of  ends.  Kant,  it 
is  true,  said  that  such  a  kingdom  could  be  only  ideal,  and 
ideal  in  the  sense  that  it  can  never  be  fully  realized  it  must 
always  remain.  But  he  conceived  such  kingdom  as  a  sys- 
tem of  individual  ends,  and  its  realization  as  their  har- 
mony. But  this  realization  we  must  conceive  as  their 
integration  in  one  Universal  End.  Moreover,  this  king- 
dom is  being  constantly  though  imperfectly  realized  in  the 
moral  gro\\i;h  of  every  people,  and  of  the  race.  It  is  only 
from  this  realization,  imperfect  as  it  is,  that  we  can  form 
any  conception  of  the  universal  end  in  itself,  which  is  at 
once  the  end  for  every  individual,  and  the  true  source  of 
the  universal  law. 


16  KANT   AND   BUTLER. 

III. 


THE   CATEGORICAL   IMPERATIVE. 


4^  We  have  frequently  spoken  of  the  moral  law  as  the 
Categorical  Imperative.  We  have  now  need  to  inquire 
what  Kant  meant  by  calling  the  law  a  categorical  impera- 
tive. 

Kant  derived  the  possibility  of  morality  from  the  rela- 
tion of  two  factors  of  human  nature,  viz:  Sensibility  and 
Keason.  If  man  were  a  purely  rational  being  without 
sensibility  at  all,  there  would  be  no  such  thing  as  virtue. 

^  The  will,  as  always  determined  by  the  concepts  of  pure 
reason,  would  always  be  a  universally  legislative  will,  and 

~i  holiness,  not  morality,  would  be  its  predicate.  On  the 
other  hand  pure  sensibility  can  not  give  rise  to  morality. 

""  Sense  is  blind,  can  look  neither  before  nor  after,  and  so  far 
as  itself  is  concerned,  can  know  no  laws  by  which  it  is  to  be 
directed.  Thus  it  is  only  when  the  sensible  being  becomes 
*  self-conscious  by  the  supervention  of  reason  that  morality 
can  arise,  and  the  very  nature  of  morality  consists  in  the 
relation  of  reason  and  sensibility.  The  holy  wdll  is  one 
that  is  absolutely  determined  by  conceptions  of  pure  rea- 
son, but  it  is  characteristic  of  human  will  that  it  is  not 
always  so  determined,  but  is  often  determined  by  inclina- 
tions instead  of   by  reason.     An  opposition  thus  arises 

^between  inclination  and  reason,  and  from  this  opposition 
morality  results.  The  nature  of  this  opposition  and  its 
necessity  for  morality  we  now  need  to  investigate. 

First,  then,  how  can  the  will  be  affected  by  the  inclina- 

'f^ions.     "Will  is  conceived  as  a  faculty  of    determining 

oneself  to  action  m  accordance  with  the  conception  of  certain 

laws;"  ( Ab.  p.  64.)  that  is,  it  is  determined  by  reason,  or  is 


THE    CATEGORICAL   IMPERATIVE.  17 

reason,  and  can  not  be  affected  by  the  inclinations  except  as ' 
reason  is  thus  affected.  How,  then,  can  reason  be  affected 
by  the  inclinations  ?  The  inclinations  can  affect  the  will  only 
because  the  self -objectifying  spirit  is  conscious  that  its 
own  satisfaction  will  be  found  in  their  gratification.  Will 
is  always  in  some  sense  determined  by  reason,  and  the 
only  question  is  whether  reason  as  affected  by  the  inclina-/ 
tions  is  pure  reason. 

To  be  determined  by  the  inclinations  was,  according  toj^ 
Kant,  to  be  determined  by  some  conception  of  pleasure 
resulting  fi'om  their  gratification.     Such  pleasure  can  be 
known   only  through    experience,    and    that    experience ', 
must     be     the    experience    of     the    individual.       Thus, 
when  pleasure  is  made  the  end  of  action,  it  can  not  be 
the  universal  end  from  the  very  fact  that  it  is  empirical. 
Pleasure  in  general  there  can  not  be.     What  each  one 
must  seek  will  be  his  own  pleasure,  and  that  pleasure  will 
consist  in  particular  gratifications  of   particular  inclina- 
tions.    Such  gratifications  must  depend  upon  the  peculiar    j 
condition  and  nature  of   the  subject  himself.      Pleasure  / 
must  always  be  purely  subjective,  and  can  give  no  objec-  T 
tive  law.     This  fact  is  not  changed,  even  if  we  say  sentient 
human  nature  is  essentially  the  same  for  all,  and  besides, 
the  knowledge  of  that  in  which  pleasure  consists  must 
still  be  empirically  conditioned,  and  experience  can  never 
be  universal.     There  can  be  no  universal  end  of  action,  no 
universal  conception  of  reason  from  which  to  derive  uni- 
versal laws,  that  is,  no  principles  by  which  actions  can  be 
directed,  with  pleasure  as  the  end  of  moral  action. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  principles  of  pure  reason  must 
be  wholly  a  priori,  not  derived  from  experience,  not  empir 
ically  conditioned.     As  pleasure  can  not  be  such  a  concep 
tion,    what   are   the   practical   conceptions   which   reason 


^ 


18  KANT   AND   BUTLER. 

alone  can  give?     The  fundamental  one  is  "I  ought,"  the 

-•Z-   notion  of  obligation.     From  no  empirical  facts  of  life  can 

rthis  conception  be  derived;  but  when  we  seek  to  analyze 

lit  further,  we  see  that  it  rises  from  the  constant  effort  of 

(|the  rational  being  for  self-satisfaction.     This  satisfaction 

^s  not  found  because  thp  ty^^e  self    is  not  realized,  and, 

however  vague  the  conception  that  gives  rise  to  it,  there 

supervenes  the  notion  that   it  ought  to   be  realized,  the 

,  notion  of  obligation.     Hence  arise  the  conceptions  of  the 

laws  of  duty,  or  of  various  forms  of  what  is  conceived  as 
the  true  self,  which  are  the  conceptions  or  laws  determin- 
\       ing  the  will. 

But  shall  we  say  that  these  conceptions  of  self,  or  of 
the  laws  of  duty,  must  be  purely  a  priori,  conceptions  of 
.  pure  reason  alone?  Kant  sometimes  uses  language  which 
^ould  lead  us  to  think  this  is  his  meaning.  But  he  him- 
self would  be  the  first  to  point  out  that  such  conceptions 
are  empty,  and  hence  meaningless,  and  can  not  affect  the 
will.  We  have  already  seen  that  it  is  only  through  the 
moral  development  of  the  individual  and  of  the  race,  as 
brought  about  by  experience,  that  moral  ideals  can  take 
definite  form.  How,  then,  from  a  moral  point  of  view 
can  we  distinguish  conceptions  of  pleasure  from  those  of 
pure  reason  ?  Kant  answers  that  from  the  former  we 
should  have  Hhe  laws  of  a  natural  system  to  which  the 
will  is  snhject,'  (Ab.  p.  188.)  because  'the  objects  [of  the 
inclinations]  must  be  the  causes  of  the  ideas  which  deter- 
mine the  will.'  But  from  the  latter  we  should  have  'the 
laws  of  a  natural  system  subject  to  a  will,'  because  'the  will 
is  the  cause  of  the  objects.'  It  is  the  old  distinction,  in 
other  words,  between  the  desirableness  of  objects  derived 
from  a  true  conception  of  self  which  must  be  universal  in 
its  nature,  and  that  derived  from  their  adaptation  to  mere 


/ 


THE   CATEGORICAL   IMPERATIVE.  19 

gratifications.     From  universal  ends  alone  can  the  univer- 
sal moral  law  be  derived. 

We  now  come  to  the  distinctive  question  of  this  sec-  4> 
tion.  Why  ought  man  to  submit  or  subject  himself  to  the  i 
moral  law?  The  answer  is  not  far  to  seek.  As  reason  i 
makes  man  what  he  is,  the  law  of  reason  is  the  law  of  his 
own  nature.  He  can  be  what  in  essence  he  is  only  by( 
obeying  its  law.  As  reason  is  also  the  source  of  desire, 
the  obligation  to  follow  the  law  of  reason  is  also  the  obli 
gation  to  which  desire  impels,  the  obligation  for  ma: 
simply  to  be  himself.  Man  must  obey  the  moral  la 
simply  because  it  is  the  true  law  of  his  being,  and  througtii 
it  alone  can  he  fully  realize  himself.  Hence  is  the  law  a 
true  categorical  imperative,  and  its  command  is  absolute. 
^>yThus  from  the  very  nature  of  the  moral  law  Kant  has 
derived  the  absolute  necessity  of  moral  obligation,  and  it^'^'^ 
has  even  been  objected  that  'his  system  of  morals  is  too  l^ 
lofty  and  stern.'  But  we  see  that  the  sternness  is  in  the 
moral  law  itself.  With  it  there  can  be  no  compromise; 
from  its  commands  there  can  be  no  exception,  and  in  so 
emphatically  insisting  upon  this  Kant  did  incalculable 
service  for  ethical  science.  The  repugnance  to  his  system 
undoubtedly  arose  from  the  fact  that  many  of  his  state- 
ments were  misunderstood,  because  in  form  not  in  har- 
mony with  his  system  as  a  whole.  But  Kant  himself 
undoubtedly  tended  to  push  his  principles  to  an  unwar- 
rantable extreme.  His  own  interpretation,  and  to  some 
extent  the  principles  themselves,  were  a  reaction  against 
the  weak  and  sentimental  morality  of  his  day,  which,  as 
Hegel  says,  'destitute  of  stability  and  consistency,'  "left 
the  door  open  for  every  whim  and  caprice."  A  less  rigor- 
ous conception  of  duty  would  have  failed  of  much  of  the 
wholesome  result  which  Kant  achieved. 


20  KANT    AND    BUTLER. 

*t^  We  are  now  prepared  to  give  in  full  the  answer  to  the 
question  with  which  we  started:    ^ttmir  nnr.  f,]^^  will  Via  ihe^. 

I  f.T]rl  of  its  own  action?'     The  moral  law  is  nothing  more 

'^Hhan  the  command  to  the  rational  being  to  realize  his  true 
nature.  This  nature  is  the  rafional  ^^]f  It  is  realized  in 
some  form  through  the  acts  of  will  that  issue  from  it.  It 
is  these  acts  in  fact,  but  on  their  inner  side.  It  consists 
in  the  disposition  by  which  the  will  is  determined.  Each 
act  of  will  is  what  it  is  through  the  disposition  from  which 
it  arises;  but  the  disposition  is  made  what  it  is  through 
the  acts  in  which  it  issues.     Th(^  will^  which  is  identical 

^•with  the  self,  realizes  ^itself  in  its  own  actions,  but  it 
realizes  itself  in  these  acts  on  their  inner  side,  as  acts  of 
will,  not  in  the  outward  results  which  they  may  bring 
about.  Any  particular  act  of  will  may  result  outwardly  in 
the  achievement  of  some  end,  or  it  may  not,  but  on  its 
inner  side  it  must  result  in  the  realization  of  some  par- 
ticular form  of  will  or  of  self.  Its  character  depends  upon 
the  conception  of  self  in  which  satisfaction  was  sought, 
but  this  conception  again  is  of  an  inner  self,  not  of  outward 
manifestation,  and  its  character  lies  in  the  disposition 
which  it  both  is,  and  which  gives  it  form.     Thus  the  will 

"^  realizes  its  true  self,  or  becomes  the  good  will,  in  following 
the  true  law  of  reason.  This  law  is  the  moral  law  and  is 
itself  derived  from  the  conception  of  the  good  will  as  the 
universally  legislative  will.  The  "law  which  according  to 
Kant  regulates  the  good  will  derives  its  authority  from  the 
conception  of  a  good  will  as  an  unconditionally  good  object." 
(Green.  Phil.  Works,  ii.  p.  10.) 


IV.  21 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   FREEDOM. 


Underlying  all  the  principles  of  ethics  which  Kant  has  i 
deduced  is  one  necessary  conception  without  which  they 
are  meaningless,  viz:  the  Notion  of  Freedom.  Freedom 
in  its  primary  signification  refers  to  the  relations  of  men 
with  each  other.  Man  is  free  to  will  or  to  do  only  when 
he  can  not  be  constrained  by  another.  Its  first  meaning 
then  when  applied  to  man  as  self -related  must  be  a  simi- 
lar one.  It  must  mean  that  man  has  the  power  to  do,  the 
power  to  will,  without  reference  to  the  nature  of  the  objects 
to  which  his  will  is  directed.  To  ^<^ill  at  all  is  thus  so  far 
to  be  free ;  freedom  of  the-tvill  is  a  useless  pleonasm.  This 
sense  of  freedom,  though  no  where  stated,  underlies  the 
whole  discussion  of  Kant.  The  rational  being  can  be  . 
determined  by  inclination  or  by  concepts  of  reason;  'the 
oDJective  necessity  of  the  latter  is  only  contingent  as  a 
subjective  principle  of  action;'  and  in  any  event  the  sub- 
ject chooses  the  foim  of  self  in  which  satisfaction  is  to  be  / 
sought. 

But  Kant  saw  that  when  man  seeks  his  satisfaction  in 
certain  objects,  as  in  sensual  gratification,  he  is  seeking  it 
where  it  can  not  be  found.  He  also  saw  that  such  grati- 
fication must  always  result  in  what  St.  Paul  calls  'the 
bondage  of  the  flesh.'  For  the  body  which  he  thus  seeks 
to  gratify  is  a  body  of  'warring  members,'  and  of  members 
warring  with  the  spirit.  It  'is  no  sooner  sated  than  again | 
wanting,'  and  can  never  be  satisfied;  much  less  can  the  true 
spirit  be  thus  satisfied.  Hence  there  must  be  a  higher 
sense  of  freedom  in  which  man  will  escape  from  this 
'bondage'  and  from  the  ever  increasing  demands  of  the 
inclinations,  and  be  truly  master  of  himself.  The  realizajb 
tion  of  such  freedom  Kant  called  autonomy. 


22  KANT   AND   BUTLER. 

J--J      Freedom  is  in  the  first  instance  self-determination,  and 
Kant  tells  us  man  surrenders  this  in  yielding  to  the  demands 
!  of  the  inclinations.  Yet  the  inclinations  are  a  part  of  the  man, 
and  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  in  them  man  is  not  self-deter- 
mined.    But  Kant  explains  that  the  inclinations  belong  to 
the  sensibility.    Each  one  in  particular  is  but  one  term  in  a 
never-ending  series;  it  depends  on  what  has  gone  before; 
it  has  its  determination  in  time  past,  so  not  in  itself;  is 
determined  ab  extra,  not  self-determined.      Man  then  as 
sentient  belongs  to  the  sensible  world,  a  world  of  mere 
phenomena,  in  which  the  law  of  determination  ab  extra, 
.  natural  causation,   has  absolute  sway.     As  sentient  then 
I  he  can  not  be  self-determined. 

Before  examining  this  exposition  let   us  see  in  what 
on   the  other  hand  true  freedom  consists.     The  phenom- 
enal world  is  the  world  of  mere  appearances,  not  appear- 
ances of  things  as  they  really  are,  but  of  things  as  consti- 
tuted by  the  understanding.    Out  of  the  manifold  presented 
to  it  by  the  sensibility  the  understanding  constructs  for 
us  that  connected  system  we  call  nature,  or  the  Cosmos. 
\  What  things-in-themselves  really  are  we  do  not  and  can 
not  know,  nor  can  we  know  the  laws  of  the  noumenal  world. 
Though  forced  to  posit  it  to  explain  the  phenomenal,  all 
iwe  know  about  it  is  that  the  laws  of  the  latter  do  not 
apply  to  it.     So  the  law  of  natural  causation,  of  determina- 
tion ab  extra  as  opposed  to  self-determination,  does  not 
N^pply  to  the  noumenal  world.    ,  Now  reason  can  not  belong 
( to    the  phenomenal  world,  because    for  man  at  least  it 
(  makes  that  world,  and  so  a,s  rational  man  must  be  a  nou- 
/menon.     So  we  have  two  points  of  view  from  which  to 
regard  man.     On  the  outward  side  he  is  known  or  knowa- 
ble,  is  one  object  among  other  objects,  and  belongs  to  the 
phenomenal  world.     On  the  inner  side  as  knowing  and 


of 
THE  DOCTRINE  OF  FREEDOM.  23 

self-conscious,  as  conscious  of  himself  as  distinct  from  the 
separate  activities  by  which  he  knows  and  is  known,  he 
belongs  to  the  noumenal  world.  Outwardly  again  all  his 
acts  are  known  or  knowable,  are  phenomena  determined 
,  as  other  phenomena.  But  on  the  inner  side,  as  the 
expression  or  realization  of  the  conscious  self,  they  are 
noumena  and  as  such  not  known  to  the  outer  sense. 

Now  as  noumenal,  as  self-conscious,  man  is  necessarilW" 
determined  in  action  to  some  conception  of  self  which  he* 
seeks,  to  realize,  and  hence  he  acts  under  the  conception!  t 
that  he  is  free.     By  that  very  fact  he  is  free,  for  action 
under  such  a  conception  is  the  realization  of  the  self  to 
which  the  action  is  determined.     Thus  man  as  rational  is 
free,  determined,  not  by  the  law  of  natural  causation,  but ' 
by  the  law  of  self-causation.     This  gi^es  us  the  conception 
of  freedom.     For  freedom  is,  in  the  first  place,  not  deter-  f 
mination  ab  extra.     But  this  is  a  negative  result,  mere 
indeterminism,   yet   it    leads  at   once  to  a  positive  one. 
^Freedom  is  self-causation;  but  causality  is  an  immutablef  • 
law,  and  so  freedom  is  the  law  of  self-determination.     The 
law  of  freedom  we  have  already  considered  as  the  moral 
law,  the  law  through  which   alone  true  self-realization  is 
achieved,    and   so   freedom   as   thus    conceived    becomes 
autonomy. 

The  contrast  here  drawn  between  man  as  determined  by 
inclination  and  as  determined  by  reason  presents  some 
peculiar  difficulties.     Autonomy  includes  all  Kant's  previJ-^ 
ous  principles  of  morality,  and  so  becomes  the  one  true 
principle.     Actions  are  moral  only  as  springing  from  thei^. 
autonomous  will.     But  Kant  himself  admits  that  a  pure 
example  of  such  a  will  has  probably  never  been  met  with, 
and  teaches  that  for  us  perfect  self-realization  is  impossi-  ^ 
ble,  even  to  all  eternity.     As  he  none  the  less  teaches  that 


24  KANT   AND    BUTLER. 

man  is  not  determined  merely  by  the  inclinations,  man 
must  fall  somewhere  between  this  and  pure  autonomy.  Two 
cases  are  then  possible.  Either  man  is  determined  as  to 
part  of  his  acts  by  pure  reason,  as  to  others  by  inclination, 
or  as  to  one  and  the  same  act  partly  by  inclination,  partly 
by  reason.  (See -Green.  Phil.  Works,  ii  p.  107.)  The  latter 
of  these  Kant  himself  rejects  by  regarding  the  'causality 
of  reason  as  complete  within  itself.'  (Crit.  Pure.  Reas. 
Mill.  Tr.  p.  479. )  The  former  is  not  in  accord  with  his 
theory.  We  have,  then,  as  posited  by  Kant,  the  absolute 
opposition  between  inclination  and  autonomy,  with  noth- 
ing tliat  can  come  between,  and  so  the  Good  Will  becomes 
absolutely  unrealizable.  Moreover,  morality  seems  to  be 
placed  in  such  absolute  opposition  to  inclination  that, 
though  Kant  himself  does  not  thus  interpret  it,  there  are 
at  least  some  grounds  for  an  ascetic  interpretation  of  his 
doctrine. 

The  difficulty  here  emerging  results  from  what  we  have 
already  pointed  out  to  be  the  unreal  opposition  between 
inclination  and  reason.  The  duality  of  human  nature  can 
never  be  maintained  as  Kant  at  times  seemed  to  maintain 
it.  Sense  without  reason,  or  reason  without  sense,  is  an 
unmeaning  abstraction,  whether  in  the  realm  of  knowledge 
or  of  morals.  Mere  inclination  is  as  impossible  in  the 
Jafte]^  as  is  mere  sensation  in  the  former.  In  truth  Kant's 
greatest  achievement  was  the  demonstration  of  this  very 
fact;  but  what  in  the  field  of  knowledge  he  so  clearly 
demonstrated,  he  seems  to  have  forgotten  in  the  field  of 
morals.  The  distinction  between  man  as  a  sensible  and 
man  as  an  intelligible  being,  though  legitimate  and  neces- 
sary when  properly  understood,  becomes  positively  mis- 
leading when  grasped  as  an  absolute  contradiction.  In 
discussing  the    phenomenon    and    thing-in-itself     Kant 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   FREEDOM.  25 

seems  both  to  have  made  and  overcome  this  distinction. 
(See  Kuno  Fischer.  Jour.  Spec.  Phil.  April.  1886.)  For 
he  seems  to  have  regarded  the  latter  as  Will,  and  to  have 
considered  it  to  be  always  present  in  the  former,  and  in 
some  sense  its  cause  or  determination.  Had  he  consist- 
ently applied  this  conclusion  in  his  ethics,  the  above 
opposition  could  not  have  resulted,  and  we  can  indeed 
learn  all  that  we  need  to  overcome  it  from  Kant  himself. 

In  the  first  Critique  Kant  regards  the  sensibility  as 
the  receptive  faculty,  and  if  this  means  anything  at  all,  if 
must  be  the  receptivity  of  reason,  and  human  reason  at 
least  is  constituted  what  it  is  by  this  fact.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  from  this  same  relation  sensibility  acquires 
its  own  peculiar  character.  It  is  by  no  means  what  it 
would  be  as  the  sensibility  of  a  non-rational  being.  Thus 
of  human  sensibility  and  reason  we  may  say  that  each  is 
what  it  is  in  and  through  the  other.  Apart  fi-om  sensi- 
bility there  may  be  reason,  but  it  is  not  human  reason. 
Apart  from  reason  there  may  be  sensibility,  but  it  is  not 
human  sensibility.  The  human  being  is  not  the  mere  com- 
bination of  these  two  factors,  as  factors  which  may,  and  in 
one  case  do,  have  a  separate  existence.  The  factors  them- 
selves are  what  they  are  only  in  their  union,  and  apart  each 
is  an  unmeaning  abstraction.  From  the  side  of  reason  Kant 
himself  has  insisted  most  emphatically  upon  this  very 
point.  But  on  the  other  side  he  does  not  seem  to  have 
appreciated  its  full  meaning,  but  seems  to  have  thought 
that  human  sensibility,  at  least  from  an  ethical  point  of 
view,  is  identical  with  that  of  non-rational  animals. 

The  opposition  then  between  inclination  and  reason,  as 
constituting  the  distinction  between  the  autonomous  and 
heteronomous  will,  we  must  now  abandon.  Man  is  never 
purely  autonomous  in  the  sense  of  purely  independent  of 
the  inclinations,  nor  wholly  heteronomous  in  the  sense  of 
wholly  subject  to  the  inclinations.     He  is    always  deter- 


26  KANT   AND   BUTLER. 

mined  by  desire,  and  desire  is  what  it  is  only  through 
\  inclination  and  reason.  So  we  can  not  say  that  he  is  ever 
''  purely  phenomenal  nor  ever  purely  noumenal.  As  the  dis- 
tinction thus  breaks  down,  the  question  that  remains  is 
whether  for  moral  purposes  there  can  be  such  a  distinction 
as  that  between  the  autonomous  and  heteronomous  will. 

We  have  seen  that  Desire  arose  from  the  effort  for 
self-satisfaction;  but  it  is  that  same  effort,  or  the  feeling 
that  prompts  to  it,  that  makes  morality  possible  or  con- 
ceivable. Now  when  the  will  is  determined  by  reason  to 
a  conception  of  self  in  which  true  satisfaction  can  not  be 
found,  from  the  very  nature  of  its  effort  a  constant  unrest 
must  result  which  may  be  truly  likened  to  a  bondage. 
"The  feeling  of  oppression  which  always  goes  along  with 
the  consciousness  of  unfulfilled  possibilities,  will  always 
give  meaning  to  the  representation  of  the  effort  after  any 
kind  of  self -improvement  as  a  demand  for  'freedom'" 
(Green.  Phil.  Works,  ii.  p.  329.),  and  a  sense  of  freedom 
must  always  accompany  the  realization  of  such  improve- 
ment. If  this  true  freedom  we  designate  as  Autonomy, 
Heteronomy  may  well  be  used  to  designate  the  failure  of 
its  achievement.  Such  heteronomy,  too,  will  always  have 
additional  meaning  in  connection  with  mere  inclination, 
and  autonomy  will  ultimately  be  seen  to  consist  in  con- 
ceiving the  true  good  as  an  end  in  which  such  inclination 
I  has  not  entered.  The  absolute  opposition  then  disap- 
pears. The  will  can  be  regarded  both  as  autonomous  and 
heteronomous;  heteronomous  in  the  sense  that  the  true 
self  has  not  been  perfectly  realized,  autonomous  so  far 
as  it  has  been  realized  and  true  freedom  achieved.  From 
this  relation  true  moral  progress  is  possible,  progress  in 
bringing  the  inclinations  in  harmony  with  the  higher  con- 
ceptions of  reason,  in  developing  that  disposition  which  can 
find  no  pleasure  in  the  gratification  of  inclinations  that  in 
any  way  hinder  the  realization  of  the  true  self. 


BUTLER, 


I. 


BUTLER  S  CONCEPTION  OF  VIRTUE. 

"There  are,"  says  Butler,  "two  ways  in  which  the  sub- 
ject of  morals  may  be  treated.  One  begins  from  inquiring 
into  the  abstract  relations  of  things:  the  other  from  a 
matter  of  fact,  what  the  particular  nature  of  man  is,  its 
several  parts,  their  economy  or  constitution;  from  whence 
it  proceeds  to  determine  what  course  of  life  it  is,  which  is 
correspondent  to  this  whole  nature.  In  the  former  method 
the  conclusion  is  expressed  thus,  that  vice  is  contrary  to 
the  nature  and  reason  of  things;  in  the  latter,  that  it  is  a 
violation  or  breaking  in  upon  our  own  nature."  Butler 
has  the  wisdom  to  choose  mainly  the  latter  method,  and 
his  first  inquiry  is  into  the  nature  of  man.  Though  man 
must  in  some  sense  be  included  in  the  nature  of  things, 
yet  what  the  nature  of  things  is  we  know  only  through 
the  interpretation  of  our  own  nature,  and  it  is  through 
the  consideration  of  this  alone  that  ethics  can  hope  to 
make  progress.  But  too  narrow  a  view  of  human  nature 
would  lead  to  one-sided  results,  for  in  its  consideration 
we  find  ourselves  constantly  led  outward,  not  merely  to 
the    relations   of    men  with    each  other,  but    to    those 


28  KANT   AND   BUTLER. 

very  'relations  of  things'  among  which  man  is,  to  those 
universal  relations  in  which  he  must  seek  to  find  himself. 
This  Butler  saw,  and  he  does  not  confine  himself  too 
closely  to  the  method  chosen,  but  with  much  true  insight 
seeks  through  the  knowledge  of  human  nature  the  univer- 
sal relations  of  the  human  being. 

What  then  is  the  nature  of  man?  If  we  analyze  his 
nature  we  find  various  inclinations,  passions  and  desires, 
much  like  those  the  brutes  have,  and  we  also  find  reflec- 
tion or  understanding,  by  which  he  distinguishes  himself 
from  the  brutes.  But  we  must  not  think  that  human 
nature  is  a  mere  aggregate  of  such  parts.  The  nature  of 
man  "is  one  whole  made  up  of  several  parts;  but  yet  the 
several  parts  considered  as  one  whole  do  not  complete  the 
idea  unless  in  the  notion  of  a  whole  you  include  the  rela- 
tions and  respects  which  these  parts  have  to  each  other." 
( Preface  to  Sermons,  p.  viii. )  The  parts  have  a  certain 
necessary  relation,  and  even  with  the  same  parts  in  differ- 
ent relation,  we  should  not  have  human  nature  at  all. 
Human  nature  is  thus  a  system  which  Butler  illustrates 
by  means  of  a  watch,  and  as  every  such  system  has  some  end 
or  purpose  outside  of  it  to  which  it  is  adapted,  just  as  the 
nature  or  the  constitution  of  a  watch  is  adapted  to  measure 
time,  so  human  nature  has  its  purpose  and  is  especially 
adapted  to  virtue.  Vice  then  is  what  is  contrary  to  this 
nature,  and  the  moral  law  is  our  natural  law.  It  is  a 
moral  law  because  we  are  'agents'  and  our  constitution 
has  been  placed  in  our  own  keeping. 

^  To  be  moral  then  is  to  be  natural;  but  does  not  this 
open  the  door  to  all  sorts  of  indulgence?  Are  not  all  our 
appetites  and  passions  natural?  legitimate  and  necessary 
parts  of  our  nature?  Is  not  their  indulgence  natural? 
Are  we  not  following  laws  of  our  nature  to  whatever  extent 


butler's  conception  of  virtue.  29 

we  indulge  them?  Such  questions  are  founded  on  a  mis- 
apprehension of  what  is  meant  by  nature.  QThe  law  of 
nature  is  the  law  of  the  whole,  not  of  any  particular  part. 
The  law  of  every  passion  is  to  seek  its  own  end,  and  in 
that  end  its  own  gratification.  But  to  substitute  this  law 
for  the  law  of  nature  would  be  to  substitute  a  law  of  a 
part  for  the  law  of  the  whole,  and  such  a  course  must  be 
contrary  to  the  economy  of  the  whole.  Yet  on  the  other 
hand  the  conception  of  the  nature  of  man  as  a  whole  of 
related  parts  gives  to  each  part  its  legitimate  place  and 
function.  So  conduct  accordant  with  the  law  of  man's 
nature  must  have  regard  in  due  proportion  to  each  of  the 
elements  of  his  economy,  and  while  allowing  to  each  its 
proper  satisfaction,  must  yet  forbid  to  any  the  undue  usur- 
pation of  powerj 

In  the  first  part  of  the  "Grundlegung"  Kant  makes 
this  use  of  the  argument  of  teleology.  "In  the  physical 
constitution  of  an  organized  being,  we  assume  it  as  a  fun- 
damental principle  that  no  organ  for  any  purpose  will  be 
found  in  it  but  what  is  also  the  fittest  and  best  adapted 
for  that  purpose."  (Ab.  p.  13  and  23,  etc.)  Now  if  reaH 
son  were  given  to  a  being  for  its  conservation,  its  welfare 
or  happiness,  nature  would  have  hit  upon  a  very  bad 
arrangement,  as  instinct  would  have  been  a  much  better 
and  safer  guide  for  that  purpose.  So  Kant  argues  that 
reason  was  given  for  some  nobler  purpose  than  mere  hap- 
piness, that  it  was  in  fact  intended  for  a  moral  faculty, 
that  its  real  purpose  is  to  produce  the  Good  Will.  So  Butler 
similarly  argues  that  man  is  especially  a  moral  beingj  "If 
the  real  nature  of  any  creature,"  he  says,  "leads  him  and 
is  adapted  to  such  and  such  purposes  only,  or  more  than 
to  any  other;  this  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  author  of 
that  nature  intended  it  for  those  purposes,"  "and  the  more 


30  KANT   AND   BUTLER. 

complex  any  constitution  is  and  the  greater  variety  of  parts 
there  are  which  thus  tend  to  some  one  end,  the  stronger  is 
the  proof  that  such  end  was  designed."     (Ser.  ii.  p.  37.) 

,  'So  the  inward  frame  of  man  may  be  considered  as  a 
guide  in  morals,'  and  'we  may  attempt  to  show  men  what 
course  of  life  and  behavior  their  real  nature  would  lead 
them  to,'  'and  we  may  argue  from  our  inward  feelings  to 
life  and  conduct  as  well  as  from  external  sense  to  absolute 
speculative  truth.' 

^  So  Butler  proceeds  to  a  more  special  inquiry  into  the 
'in'ward  frame'  of  man,  and  its  resulting  good.  First  we 
find  that  man  is  an  individual  composed  of  many  mem- 
bers, and  as  so  composed  he  is  especially  adapted  to 
happiness,  and  considers  it  his  chiefest  good,  and  as  his 
nature  as  a  whole  m  composed  of  various  'members,'  this 
good  must  consist  in  the  good  of  these  'members,'  and 
happiness  must  consist  in  the  gratification  of  the  various 
appetites,  passions,  affections,  which  are  the  'members.' 

(The  principle  by  which  man  seeks  his  own  good  or  happi- 
ness is  self-love.  But  on  the  other  hand  man  is  not  a 
mere  isolated  individual,  for  he  stands  in  intimate  relations 
with  other  men,  and  "there  are  as  real  and  the  same  kind 
of  indications  in  human  nature  that  we  were  made  for 
society,  and  to  do  good  to  our  fellow-creatures;  as  that  we 
were  intended  to  take  care  of  our  own  life  and  health  and 
private  good."  (Ser.  i.  p.  27.)  "We  are  every  one  mem- 
bers one  of  another,"  and  Benevolence,  by  which  we 
seek  the  good  of  others  and  of  the  whole  of  society,  is  just 
as  much  an  inherent  principle  of  our  nature  as  is  self-loye7 
•-'We  must  not  mistake  the  meaning  of  the  terms  self- 
love  and  benevolence  as  used  by  Butler.     We  are  apt  to 

'  regard  both  as  particular  affections  among  other  particular 
affections.    We  identify  self-love  with  vicious  self-seeking 


.  butler's  conception  of  virtue.  31 

and  think  benevolence  as  much  a  weakness  as  a  virtue. 
But  both  self-love  and  benevolence  are  here  used  to  des- 
ignate, not  particular  affections,  but  general  principles  of 
our  nature.  It  is  the  nature  of  particular  affections  to 
rest  in  particular  objects  as  their  end,  but  neither  self-love 
nor  benevolence  has  any  particular  object  to  which  it 
compels  us.  We  may  hate  ourselves  and  others,  and  yet 
feel  the  pain  of  hunger  and  shame.  Hunger  seeks  its 
gratification  in  food,  desire  of  esteem  in  approbation,  but 
neither  is  self-love  or  benevolence,  though  the  one  tends  to 
the  good  of  the  individual  and  the  other  of  society.  'Men 
have  various  appetites,  passions,  and  particular  affections, 
quite  distinct  both  from  self-love  and  benevolence.  Some 
of  them  seem  most  immediately  to  respect  others  or  tend 
to  public  good;  others  most  immediately  respect  self,  or 
tend  to  private  good.  As  the  former  are  not  benevolence 
so  the  latter  are  not  self-love.'     (Ser.  i.  p.  30.) 

By  this  conception  of  self-love  and  benevolence  Butler 
overcomes  a  serious  difficulty.  For  self-love  as  mere  self- 
seeking  would  always  stand  in  direct  opposition  to 
benevolence  as  a  mere  generous  affection.  One  would  be 
pui-ely  'egoistic'  and  the  other  equally  'altruistic,'  and  a  con- 
flict or  'trial'  would  result  which  could  only  be  settled  by  a 
'compromise.'  The  end  to  which  self-love  tends  is  the] 
good  of  the  whole  man  and  is  exactly  the  same  as  that  to 
which  benevolence  tends.  For  the  greatest  good  of  the 
individual  is  the  greatest  good  of  all,  and  it  is  not  by 
repressing  self-love  that  we  follow  the  dictates  of  benevo- 
lence, nor  is  benevolence  forgotten  in  seeking  the  true 
good  of  the  self. J  There  is  no  'conflict,'  no  'trial'  and  no 
'compromise."  "They  are  so  perfectly  coincident  that  the 
greatest  satisfactions  to  ourselves  depend  upon  our  having 
benevolence  in  due  degree,  and  that  self-love  is  one  chief 


32  KANT   AND   BUTLER. 

necessity  of  our  right  behavior  towards  society."  "We 
can  not  promote  the  one  without  the  other."  ( Ser.  i.  p.  28. ) 
Butler  needed  to  go  but  little  farther  here  and  say  that 
either  term  is  meaningless  except  as  implying  the 
other.  True  self-love  always  looks  to  others,  and  true 
benevolence  always  looks  to  self.  In  fact  there  is  but  one 
principle,  as  Butler  imperfectly  saw.  Regard  for  others 
must  form  one  of  the  necessary  elements  of  our  nature. 
Were  we  to  throw  it  away  and  live  for  ourselves  alone,  we 
should  lose  all  the  common  enjoyments  of  life;  nor  should 
we  thus  get  rid  of  restraint.  We  can  gain  no  end  except 
by  one  course  of  action,  by  submitting  to  restraints  that 
must  often  prove  painful.  It  may  often  cost  more  pain  to 
gratify  some  passion  than  would  have  been  necessary  to 
conquer  it.  Self-love  must  not  only  have  the  same  end  as 
benevolence,  but  it  must  include  benevolence,  just  as  we 
might  say  benevolence  must  include  self-love,  and  we  have 
but  the  one  general  principle  of  our  nature  which  must 
have  due  regard  for  the  good  of  all. 

But  there  is  another  general  principle  of  our  nature  of 
even  greater  importance.  "We  are  plainly  constituted 
such  sort  of  creatures  as  to  reflect  upon  our  own  nature. 
The  mind  can  take  a  view  of  what  passes  within  itself,  its 
propensions,  aversions,  passions,  affections,  as  respecting 
such  objects  and  in  such  degrees;  and  of  the  several 
actions  consequent  thereupon.  In  this  survey  it  approves 
of  one,  disapproves  of  another,  and  towards  a  third  is 
quite  indifferent."  (Ser.  i.  p.  31.)  From  the  action  of 
this  principle  certain  affections  are  greatly  strengthened 
or  even  elevated  into  permanent  principles  of  action. 
We  approve  every  good  action  that  we  do,  and  we  also 
approve  good  actions  in  others  though  we  may  not  do 
them.    This  principle  is  conscience,  the  presence  and  influ- 


butler's  conception  of  virtue.  33 

ence  of  which  is  indisputable.  Another  term  Butler  used 
for  this  principle  is  'reflection,'  which  indicates  more  spe- 
cifically what  he  conceived  to  be  its  nature.  "The  nature 
of  man  is  adapted  to  some  course  of  action  or  other" 
he  tells  us.  ( Ser.  iii.  p.  52.)  "Upon  comparing  some 
actions  with  this  nature,  they  appear  suitable  and  corres- 
pondent to  it:  from  comparison  of  other  actions  with  the 
same  nature,  there  arises  to'our  view  some  unsuitableness 
or  disproportion. "  It  is  by  reflection  that  we  determine 
what  is  suitable  or  unsuitable,  proportionate  or  dispropor- 
tionate, and  such  reflection  is  conscience.  Conscience  is  "t^ 
thus  merely  reason  in  the  specific  function  of  determining 
the  relation  of  our  various  actions  to  our  constitution  or 
nature.  To  this  we  might  add  moral  feeling,  or  make 
conscience  wholly  this  feeling.  But  conscience  according 
to  Butler  is  only  reflection  or  reason,  it  is  not  the  moral 
sense  and  does  not  belong  to  the  sensibility  at  all.* 

From  this  general  survey  we  have  human  nature  as 
composed  of  various  particular  appetites  and  passions  and 
the  general  principles  of  self-love  and  conscience.  This 
nature  is  constituted  by  these  as  independent  elements 
taken  in  their  proper  relations.  It  is  a  system  of  such 
elements,  and  in  his  various  sermons  Butler  endeavors  to 
show  what  is  the  peculiar  function  of  each  principle  and 
pai-ticular  affection  in  the  economy  as  a  whole.  Through 
his  acute  and  interesting  psychological  analyses  we  do  not 
need  to  follow  him  in  detail,  but  need  only  some  of  the 
more  general  relations. 

/'First  then  we  need  to  note  that  certain  principles  are 
superior  to  others  and  should  therefore  in  general  con- 
trol our  actions.    This  does  not  mean  that  certain  appetites 

*In  the  Dissertation  on  the  nature  of  virtue  he  inclines  to  the  opinion  how- 
evor  that  moral  feelinjj  should  be  includert. 


M  KANT   AND    BUTLEK. 

and  passions  have  greater  strength,  for  though  they  do, 
they  should  not  for  that  reason  determine  conduct.  If, 
for  example,  a  certain  strong  passion  determines  action 
in  line  of  its  excessive  gratification,  we  have  already  seen 
that  such  action  is  against  the  economy  of  the  whole.  But 
if  such  a  passion,  however  strong,  is  brought  into  conflict 
with  cool  self-love,  no  one  can  doubt  which  ought  to  pre- 


^  ^vail.  Any  particular  passion  "can  be  violated  without  con- 
tradicting our  nature.  But  self-love,  from  its  very  nature, 
can  not.  The  difference  between  self-love  and  any  partic- 
ular passion  is  not  a  difference  of  strength  or  degree,  but 
one  of  kind.  The  former  should  prevail  over  the  latter  no 
matter  what  their  relative  strength.  But  if  we  can  say 
this  much  of  self-love,  what  can  we  say  of  the  highest 
principle  of  our  nature,  the  'principle  by  which  we  survey 
and  either  ajjprove  or  disapprove  our  own  heart,  temper, 
actions,'  viz:  'Conscience.'  (From  its  very  nature  this 
must  be  superior  to  all  others.  'We  can  not  form  the 
notion  of  conscience  without  taking  in  judgment,  direction, 
superin tendency.'  'From  our  very  economy  and  constitu- 
tion its  function  is  to  guide  and  to  govern,'  'to  direct  and 
regulate  all  under  principles  and  passions  and  motives  of 
"^C  action.'  Conscience,  as  reflection,  prescribes  the  law  to 
the  whole  man,  or  in  Kant's  phrase,  'confronts  the  man 
with  the  law  of  duty.' 

The  view  of  human  nature  thus  reached  Butler  likens 
to  a  civil  constitution,  uniting  various  subordinations 
under  one  supreme  authority.  Leave  out  the  various  sub- 
ordinations, the  union  or  the  supreme  authority,  and  we 
have  no  civil  constitution  at  all.  'So  reason,  and  the  sev- 
eral appetites  and  affections,  prevailing  in  different  degrees 
of  strength  is  not  the  notion  or  idea  of  human  nature.' 
^That  nature  consists  of  the  various  other  propensions  and 


butler's  conception  of  virtue.  35 

principles  in  their  subordination  to  the  one  superior  prin- 
ciple of  reason  or  conscience)  I^Hence  we  may  conclude 
that  man  is  not  "to  act  at  random  and  live  at  large  up  to  the 
extent  of  his  natural  power,  as  passion,  humor,  willfulness, 
happen  to  carry  him,  which  is  the  condition  the  brutes  are 
in:  but  that  from  his  make,,  constitution^  or  nature,  he  is  in 
the  strictest  and  most  proper  sense  aJajsLto  himself.  He 
hath  the  rule  of  right  within :  what  is  wanting  is  only  that  he 
honestly  attend  to  it."  So  Butler  says  with  Kant,  efery 
plain  honest  man  will  determine  with  truth  what  is  right 
or  wrong.  \ 

One  other  question  remains.  What  is  our  obligation  to 
obey  this  law?  Butler  answers,  "Your  obligation  to 
obey  this  law  is  its  being  the  law  of  your  nature."  (Ser. 
iii.  p.  49.)  Conscience  has  authority  because  it  is  the 
natural  guide,  the  guide  assigned  to  us  by  the  Author  of 
our  nature.  But  Butler  supplements  this  answer  with 
another,  both  in  his  sermons  and  more  especially  in  the 
first  part  of  the  Analogy.  Life,  as  he  conceives  it,  is  a 
state  of  discipline,  of  moral  probation.  Presiding  over 
us,  like  a  ruler  over  his  people,  is  God,  who  wisely  admin- 
isters everything  for  the  good  of  his  subjects.  His  ways 
are  for  us  inscrutable,  but  from  our  own  make  and  the 
fact  that  he  is  infinitely  good  and  just,  we  may  rest 
assured  that  He  will  direct  all  so  that  we  shall  ultimately 
realize  the  greatest  possible  happiness.  While  we  can  not 
say  just  what  will  lead  to  our  happiness  here,  He  has 
given  us  a  sure  guide,  for  conscience  is  his  'voice  within  us.' 
Moreover  His  government  is  a  system  of  rewards  and 
punishments,  and  so  we  must  obey  the  law,  not  simply 
because  he  has  implanted  it  in  us  and  it  is  the  law  of  our 
nature,  but  also  because  he  will  reward  or  punish  us 
according  to  our  obedience  or  disobedience.     He  has  so 


36  KANT   AND   BUTLER. 

arranged  things  that  through  obedience  alone  can  we 
reach  happiness,  and  "Duty  and  interest  are  perfectly 
coincident:  for  the  most  part  in  this  world  and  in  every 
instance  if  we  take  in  the  future,  and  the  whole;  this  being 
implied  in  the  notion  of  a  good  and  perfect  administration  of 
things."  (Ser.  iii.  p.  63. )  The  'Deus  ex  Machina'  becomes 
the  fundamental  principle  of  Butler's  ethics. 


IL 


BUTLER    AND    KANT. 


We  have  here  then  a  general  view  of  Butler's  concep- 
ception  of  virtue,  and  at  first,  both  in  method  and  spirit, 
he  seems  to  be  the  opposite  of  Kant.  For  Kant  has  said 
the  moral  law  can  not  be  derived  from  the  study  of  the  par- 
ticular nature  of  man;  it  must  he  universal  and  apply  to  man 
only  because  he  is  rational.  But  Butler  starts  from  man's 
nature,  inquires  what  in  particular  that  nature  is,  and  the 
moral  law  is  the  law  of  his  own  proper  nature.  But  this  is 
only  a  seeming  opposition,  for  Kant  was  working  upon  the 
same  principle  as  Butler.  He  conceived  the  real  nature 
of  man  as  his  rational  nature,  and  so  universal,  and  hence 
its  true  law  must  be  the  universal  law  of  reason.  Each, 
in  other  words,  regards  the  moral  law  as  the  natural  law, 
though  Kant  would  have  rejected  this  expression  as 
implying  physical  necessity.  So  when  it  is  asked  why 
man  should  obey  the  law,  both  Kant  and  Butler  return  the 
same  answer.  He  must  obey  the  law  because  it  is  the 
true  law  of  his  nature,  the  law  of  his  real  being,  and 
obligation  has  for  both  the  same  source!) 


BUTLEK   AND   KANT.  37 

Moreover  Butler  also  approximates  to  Kant's  concep- 
tion that  the  law  must  be  universal.  He  sees  that  man  is 
one  member  in  a  whole  of  society,  and  his  actions  must 
have  due  regard  to  others  as  well  as  to  self,  just  as  Kant 
enjoins  that  man  must  always  have  equal  regard  for 
human  nature,  whether  in  his  own  person  or  that  of 
another.  Moreover  for  Butler  this  regard  for  others 
belongs  to  the  very  nature  of  man  and  so  to  the  law 
derived  from  that  nature.  Allowing  indeed  for  the  con- 
creteness  of  Butler's  method  and  the  abstraction  of  Kant, 
it  is  at  first  difficult  to  see  wherein  the  conclusion  of  the 
former  as  to  the  nature  of  the  moral  law  differs  from  that 
of  the  latter.  The  universal  law  can,  after  all,  be  only 
that  law  of  conduct  that  has  due  regard  for  self  and  all 
other  rational  beings. 
-^  /Reason  or  conscience  again  is  regarded  by  both  Kant 
and  Butler  as  the  highest  principle  in  man's  nature.  We 
remember  that  Kant  assigned  to  reason  supreme  authority 
in  all  conduct;  it  dictates  the  law  to  the  rest  of  man's 
nature;  its  command  is  absolute;  it  gives  us  the  categori- 
cal imperative.  So  for  Butler  conscience  as  reflection  or 
reason,  contemplating  man's  nature  and  deducing  there- 
from its  proper  law,  has  the  same  absolute  authority 
*Had  it  power  as  it  has  right  it  would  rule  the  world.' 
What  is  more  his  conception  of  conscience  is  practically 
identical  with  that  of  Kant.  Conscience  is  one  of  the  nat- 
ural principles  of  oiu*  nature,  and  should  guide  in  conduct 
because  it  is  the  natural  guide,  he  tells  us,  just  as  Kant 
says  that  conscience  is  original  and  there  can  be  no  duty 
to  produce  one.  So,  too,  Kant  defines  conscience  as  Oman's  - 
practical  reason^  which  in  all  cases  holds  before  him  his 
law  of  duty'  (Meth.  of  Ethics,  "Elements  of  Doc.  of  Vir- 
tue," xii.  B;  Semple  Tr.  p.  217. ),  a  definition  exactly  fitting 


88  KANT   AND   BUTLER. 

Butler's  description.  The  resemblance  here  is  even  more 
profound.  We  remember  that  Kant  defines  duty  as  the 
necessity  of  acting  from  respect  for  the  law  of  reason. 
But,  as  we  also  saw,  the  law  of  reason  is  the  law  of 
the  true  self,  and  respect  for  this  law  can  only  mean 
respect  for  the  self  to  which  the  law  commands.  So 
'respect  for  the  law'  corresponds  to  Butler's  self-love. 
Thus  for  both  Kant  and  Butler  reason  and  self-love  are 
the  two  principles  without  which  morality  is  inconceiva- 
ble, and  Butler  is  constantly  arguing,  what  results  from 
the  very  nature  of  Kant's  conception,  that  conscience  and 
self-love  must  always  ultimately  have  one  and  the  same 
end. 

Kant  in  his  'Metaphysic  of  Ethics'  treats  of  the  duties 
owed  by  man  to  himself  and  of  the  duties  owed  to  others,  a 
division  corresponding  to  Butler's  self-love  and  benevo- 
lence, as  the  general  principles  given  in  his  earlier  ser- 
mons. The  latter  showed  also  that  true  self-love  and  true 
benevolence  were  really  one,  and  Kant  derived  the  mor- 
ality of  all  actions  from  the  fact  that  they  are  done  from 
respect  for  the  law  of  the  true  self.  Thus  for  both  self- 
love  and  benevolence  were  run  up  into  one  higher  princi- 
ple, in  which  they  are  included,  which  must  always  be  the 
true  spring  of  action,  and  which  we  may  call  love  or 
respect  for  self. 

In  the  Dissertation  on  the  Nature  of  Virtue  Butler 
makes  even  more  striking  approaches  to  Kant's  conclusion. 
He  carefully  distinguishes  between  'actions'  and  'events,' 
and  the  former  alone  are  subjects  of  moral  judgment. 
"Acting  conduct,  behavior,  abstracted  from  all  regard  to 
what  is  in  fact  and  event  the  consequence  of  it,  is  itself 
the  natural  object  of  moral  discernment."  (Diss.  II.  {Fwst) 
p.  205.)     'Will  and  design  are  the  object  and  only  object 


BUTLER  AND  KANT.  ;o9 

of  the  approving  faculty,' and  constitute  the  very  nature 
of  action.  Here  we  are  reminded  at  once  of  Kant's  dis--^^ 
cussion  of  the  'Good  Will,'  and  of  his  second  principle  of 
duty,  and,  just  as  Kant  says,  that  man  blames  himself 
only  because  he  attributes  actions  to  himself,  Butler  adds 
'We  never  in  a  moral  way  applaud  or  blame  either  our-  . 
selves  or  others  for  what  we  enjoy  or  what  we  suffer,  but 
only  for  what  we  do,  or  would  have  done,  had  it  been  in 
our  power/J 

Finallf'^wK  remember  that   Kant   everywhere  argues    ) 
thaijiappiness'can  not  be  the  aim  of  conduct  that  is  moral. 
He  says  that  such  conduct  can  not  result  from  self-love  on 
the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  that  it  can  not  be  the 
result  of  a  desire  for  universal  happiness.     As  to  self-love 
we  shall  see  lateffbut  why  can  not  general  happiness  be^ 
made  the  end  for  moral  action?     Kant  replies  that  w6  can 
not  tell  what  the  result  of  actions  will  be.     From  such  an 
end  morality  would  be  reduced  to  a  mere  system  of  reck- 
oning as  to  what  actions  would  result  in  most  pleasure; 
but  our  data  are  absolutely  insufficient  to  determine  this 
result,  and  no  line  of  action  could  be  determined;  much 
less  could  we  derive  any  universal  rule  or  law.     Again,   — 
such  an   end  could  not  be  the  source  of  the  necessary 
authority  to  give  us  the  categorical  imperative.    So  Butler  ^^ 
argues  that  virtue  can  not  consist  in  aiming  to  promote  the 
happiness  of  mankind  in  the  present  state  because  we  can 
not  tell  what  actions  will  most  promote  happiness.     So 
also  he  says  with  Kant,  the  notion  of  ill-desert  which  accom- 
panies our  notions  of  vicious  actions,  can  not  arise  from  the 
mere  contemplation  of  actions  with  regard  to  some  exter- 
nal result,  but  must  arise  from  the  very  constitution  of  our 
nature.     Both  Kant  and  Butler  saw  that  the  requirements  f 
for  happiness  can  not  always  be  understood  and  can  not 


40  KANT   AND    BUTLEE. 

always  be  fulfilled,  but  the  commands  of  duty  all  can 
understand  and  obey.  ( Ab.  p.  28. ) 
~^  But  while  there  is  this  external  resemblance  in  the  two 
systems  of  ethics,  and  this  general  approximation  in  the 
conclusions  reached,  there  is  in  reality  a  profound  and 
fundamental  difference,  which  gives  to  the  respective  con- 
clusions absolutely  different  meanings  and  valuegp  As  in 
both  cases  the  moral  law  was  conceived  as  the  law  of  man's 
nature,  this  difference  must  arise  from  the  different  con- 
ceptions of  human  nature,  and  this  difference  we  now 
need  to  examine. 

\  We  have  already  seen  the  meaning  of  Kant's  concep- 
tion of  man  as  distinctively  rational.  Kant  rightly  under- 
stood and  defined  the  nature  of  reason  as  the  self-conscious 
principle  in  man,  and  it  was  from  this  conception  that  he 
derived  all  his  great  moral  principles.  To  reason  as  this 
self-conscious  principle  he  expressly  attributes  what  Hegel 
calls  'positive  infinity,'  and  it  is  from  this  that  it  gives  to 
man  his  especial  character  as  a  moral  being.  Moreover, 
he  clearly  saw  that  reason  as  self-conscious  must  affect  the 
whole  nature  of  man,  and  constitute  it  what  it  is.  In 
spite  of  the  opposition  of  sensibility  and  reason,  he  himself 
sufficiently  demonstrated  that  human  nature  is  not  dual- 
istic,  that  we  can  not  speak  of  man  as  mere  sensibility  and 
mere  reason,  but  that  (though  he  seems  at  times  to  have 
forgotten  this  conclusion )  we  must  regard  him,  according 
to  our  point  of  view,  as  rational  sensibility  or  sensible 
raason^ 

-J.  Thus  Kant  gave  to  human  nature  an  essential  unity,  a 
unity  constituted  by  reason  itself.     But  we  have  already- 
found  from  our  examination  of  Butler's  conception,  that 
reason  though  the  highest,  is  only  one  among  the  several  fac- 
tors in  its  constitution.  He  regards  human  nature  as  a  whole 


BUTLER   AND   KANT.  41 

composed  of  these  factors,  and  is  careful  to  teli  us  it  is  not 
a  mere  aggregated)  But  their  union  as  he  conceives  it  is 
nevertheless  not  Iruly  organic.  For  while  the  constitution 
of  man  subsists  in  the  relation  of  the  parts,  this  relation 
when  defined  is  the  mere  subordination  of  certain  factors 
to  certain  higher  ones.  Butler's  view  is  purely  analytic; 
each  part  is  not  made  what  it  specifically  is  through  the 
relation.  The  union  of  parts  is  a  mere  federation  in 
which  the  good  of  the  whole  is  to  be  consulted  only  in 
order  that  the  good  of  each  may  be  properly  conserved. 
Even  his  illustration  by  means  of  a  civil  constitution  does 
not  remove  this  criticism,  for  the  state  itself  is  not  more 
organically  conceived,  and  so  human  nature  from  his  con- 
ception has  no  real  unity.  There  is  no  real  whole,  no  true 
self,  but  a  combination  in  various  relations  and  propor- 
tions, of  the  individual  elements  of  reason,  self-love,  and 
the  various  propensions.  So  far  then  is  Butler  from  con-"" 
ceiving  reason  as  giving  distinctive  character  to  man  and 
constituting  his  real  unity,  that  he  derives  his  notion  of 
reason  itself,  together  with  that  of  self-love  and  happiness, 
from  his  analytic  conception  of  human  nature. 

As  a  first  result  of  such  a  conception  of  human  nature, 
Butler  does  not  seem  to  have  departed  very  far  from  Kant. 
For  we  have  seen  that  the  latter  regarded  the  sensibility 
as  purely  phenomenal,  and  so  for  him  the  various  appe- 
tites, passions,  and  affections  would  stand  in  much  the 
same  relation  to  the  w^hole  of  human  nature  as  for  Butler. 
In  other  words  their  nature  would  not  be  essentially 
different  from  that  of  corresponding  propensions  of  other 
animals.  We  now  know,  however,  that,  had  Kant  been 
consistent  with  his  own  conceptions,  the  inclinations  them- 
selves would  have  derived  their  essential  nature  from  the 
real  unitv  of  man's  nature,  while  Butler's  anal v tic  view 


42  KANT  AND   BUTLER. 

must  leave  them  unaffected  by  their  relation  to  other 
principles,  /feut  when  we  come  to  the  conception  of  reason, 
the  real  difference  begins  to  manifest  itself.  By  But- 
ler reason,  as  conscience,  was  looked  at  from  the  purely 
individual  side,  a  Conscience  is  reflection,  it  looks  within, 
not  upon  itself,  but  upon  the  whole  nature  of  man,  a  whole 
with  many  other  factors  besides  reason;  it  seeks  from 
knowledge  of  the  parts  and  their  relation  to  the  economy 
of  the  whole,  the  law  of  the  whole,  and  in  its  search  it  is 
guided  by  the  principle  of  self-love,  the  principle  that 
looks  to  the  highest  good  of  the  individual.  It  is  thus 
that  reason  can  designate  the  law  of  human  nature,  is  the 
natural  guide  and  has  absolute  authority.  The  rational 
being  is  for  Butler  a  mere  individual,  and  reason,  though 
distinguishing  him  from  the  brutes,  is  individual  reason, 
reflection.  V  It  is  not  self-conscious.  It  does  not  prescribe 
to  man  its  own  pure  law. )  What  it  does  prescribe  is  a  law 
derived  from  the  consideration  of  a  nature  in  which  it  is 
only  a  factor,  and  the  other  factors  of  which  are  not  essen- 
tially modified  by  their  relation  to  it;  what  it  does  prescribe 
is  in  reality  the  law  of  sensible  nature. 

This  may  at  first  seem  an  unjust  view  of  Butler's  con- 
ception. He  himself  tells  us  that  morality  arises  from  the 
relations  of  men  with  each  other,  and  treats  conscience 
and  self-love  as  if  they  were  in  a  measure  opposed. 
Moreover  he  tells  us  that  if  we  look  at  man  from  the  side 
of  self-love  alone,  or  from  the  side  of  benevolence  alone, 
we  shall  get  a  one-sided  view.  ( Sermon  I,  last  paragraph 
of  page  36.)  If  a  man  acts  on  either  principle  alone 
he  can  not  fulfill  his  whole  nature,  and  he  adds  that  "men 
are  as  unjust  to  themselves  as  to  others,  and  for  the  most 
part  are  equally  so  by  the  same  actions."  All  this  would 
seem  to  imply  that  man  stands  in  a  really  organic  relation 


BUTLER  AND  KANT.  43 

to  other  men,  that  his  true  self  is  universal,  and  he  must 
so  act  as  to  realize  this  self.  But  this  is  not  Butler's  con- 
ception. For  he  tells  us  almost  in  the  same  breath  that 
man  from  his  various  propensions  is  adapted  to  happiness; 
it  is  happiness  he  must  seek,  and  he  is  unjust  to  himself 
only  when  he  acts  against  this  happiness.  That  conscience 
will  lead  to  the  greatest  happiness  he  is  sure,  only  because 
it  was  implanted  for  that  very  purpose.  Thus  we  come 
back  to  the  purely  individualistic  view  of  human  nature. 

[We  have  already  indicated  that  Kant  defines  conscience 
as  individual  reason,  but  he  carefully  distinguishes  between 
this  and  universal  reason,  which  human  reason  also  essen- 
tially is.  At  this  point  then,  which  indesd  marks  the  crown- 
ing achievement  of  Kantian  ethics,  Kant  shows  his  immeas- 
urable superiority  to  Butler.  For  while  reason  is  truly 
individual,  as  Butler  conceived  it,  it  is  just  as  truly  uni- 
versal, and  as  universal,  is  self-conscious,  and  makes  man 
a  moral  being.)  But  this  point  has  already  been  sufficiently 
dwelt  upon  and  we  pass  to  another. 

From  his  failure  to  grasp  the  essential  nature  of  human 
reason,  and  so  the  essential  unity  of  human  nature,  Butler 
failed  to  find  any  true  end  for  moral  conduct.  We  have 
seen  that  Kant  found  this  end  in  the  development  of  the 
Good  Will,  the  realization  of  the  true  self.  But  as  for 
Butler  there  was  no  essential  unity,  there  could  be  no 
true  self  to  realize,  and  he  was  forced  to  look  elsewhere  for 
a  reason  for  right  action.  So  Butler  conceived  that  man 
must  bo  destined  for  happiness.  Into  the  nature  of  his 
conception  of  happiness  we  shall  inquire  more  fully  later. 
It  is  sufficient  for  the  present  to  state  that  happiness  for 
Butler  consisted  in  the  gratification  of  the  inclinations, 
and  from  this  conception  we  can  determine  the  function  of 
reason  as  a  moral  f  acultv.     The  nature  of  any  inclination  is 


44  KANT   AND   BUTLER. 

to  seek  it  send  immediately,  without  reference  to  the  means, 
and  if  the  inclinations  are  permitted  to  work  blindly,  it  is 
manifest  that  their  ends  can  often  be  attained  only  with 
manifest  injury  to  the  individual  as  a  whole  (an  injury 
consisting  in  depriving  him  of  higher  gratifications)  or 
with  injury  to  other  individuals.  Conscience  or  reflection 
in  such  cases  disapproves.  Thus  while  conscience  is  an 
inward  rule  of  action,  and  the  man  is  in  this  sense  a  law 
unto  himself,  and  while  furthermore  we  can,  from  the  indi- 
vidual's point  of  view,  only  judge  of  the  action  from  the 
motive  by  which  it  was  actuated,  that  is,  by  its  degree  of 
conformity  to  the  law  of  conscience,  yet  the  real  standard 
of  right  and  wrong  is  an  external  one.  The  morality  is 
not  determined  by  the  conception  of  self  by  which  reason 
determined  the  action,  but  by  the  external  result  which 
the  action  is  to  produce.  As  conscience  is  always  looking 
to  external  results  we  see  why  Butler  can  oppose  it  to  self- 
love.  This  opposition,  if  properly  conceived,  is  an  entirely 
just  and  necessary  one.  If  for  Conscience  we  put  Uni- 
versal Reason  and  by  self-love  we  mean  love  of  the  true 
self  (though  Kant's  term  'respect'  is  better)  these  two 
principles  must  be  kept  distinct,  and  must  yet  both  be 
present  in  every  moral  act.  But  from  the  side  of  con- 
science it  is  precisely  here  that  Butler  fails,  and  so  fails 
to  account  for  moral  worth.  Conscience  is  not  universal 
reason;  its  only  function  is  'to  direct  and  regulate  all  under 
principles,  passions  and  motives  of  action.'  Thus  reason 
does  not  constitute  motives  what  they  are,  and  can  only 
direct  and  regulate  them  with  reference  to  some  standard 
external  to  itself.  While  Butler  here  avoids  the  Kantian 
tendency  to  asceticism,  he  also  fails  to  posit  the  necessary 
distinction  between  sense  and  reason,  fails  to  see  that 
reason  alone  can  give  actions  moral  worth. 


BUTLER   AND   KANT.  45 

We  have  now  seen  that  Butler's  conscience  fails  to 
meet  the  full  requirements  of  reason  as  a  practical  faculty. 
We  now  need  to  see  how  far  his  principle  of  self-love  can 
be  regarded  as  a  truly  moral  principle.  Kant  rejected 
self-love  in  name  as  an  ethical  principle,  but  substituted  a 
similar  principle  under  a  different  name.  This  other 
principle  Kant  designated  in  various  ways,  which  also 
serve  as  its  sufficient  description.  Thus  he  speaks  of  it  as 
'respect  for  the  law,'  which  he  says  amounts  to  genuine 
pleasure  ih  contemplating  the  law;  as  'reason  which  is 
itself  a  higher  desire  to  which  lower  desires  are  subordin- 
ate;' or  as  the  'respect-inspiring  idea  of  personality,  which 
sets  before  our  eyes  the  sublimity  of  our  own  nature.'  ( Ab. 
p.  258.)  Such  a  principle  we  may  call  'love,'  or  better, 
'respect  for  the  true  self  and  we  see  from  his  description 
that  Kant  seeks  carefully  to  discriminate  it  from  the  other 
principle  called  self-love,  whose  only  end  is  selfish  gratifi- 
cation in  whatever  way  obtained,  or  which  looks  only  to 
the  greatest  possible  gratification  of  the  inclinations.  Now 
Kant  has  sufficiently  proved  that  this  latter  principle  can 
have  no  place  in  morality,  and  we  need  not  go  into  this 
proof  because  it  necessarily  results  from  his  distinction 
between  sense  and  reason.  In  judging  of  Butler's  princi- 
ple therefore  we  only  need  to  know  under  which  head  it 
falls. 

Now  fi-om  Butler's  statement  of  his  conception  of 
human  nature  as  a  whole,  this  whole  would  seem  to  be  the 
self,  and  self-love  would  thus  be  determined  as  Kant's 
true  principle,  and  in  this  view  we  are  strengthened  by 
the  care  he  has  taken  to  distinguish  it  from  all  subordin- 
ate propensions.  But  when  he  comes  more  especially  to 
treat  of  self-love,  we  find  this  is  not  Butler's  conception  at 
all.     For  he  tells  us,  "every  man  hath  a  general  desire  for 


4n  KANT   AND   BITTLEE. 

his  own  happiness"  (Ser.  xi.  p.  126.),  and  this  desire  ^is 
self-love.'  This  would  seem  to  exclude  self-love  as  a 
moral  principle,  yet  if  happiness  is  conceived  as  true  self- 
satisfaction,  it  might  yet  be  retained.  At  first  again  But- 
ler's general  view  of  human  nature  would  seem  to  imply 
some  such  notion  of  happiness,  but  Butler  dispels  all 
such  anticipations  by  the  definition  of  happiness  which  he 
himself  has  given.  For  happiness  "is  the  enjoyment  of 
those  objects  which  are  by  nature  suited  to  our  several 
particular  appetites,  passions  and  affections"  (Ser.  xi.  p. 
128.),  and  so  "consists  in  the  gratification  of  particular 
passions."  (Ibid.  p.  129.)  This  conception  of  happiness 
and  the  resulting  conception  of  self-love  are  in  fact,  as  is 
evident  on  more  careful  consideration,  the  only  ones  Butler's 
analytic  view  of  human  nature  will  allow.  For  from  that  view 
there  is  no  true  self  whose  satisfaction  can  give  happiness, 
no  true  self  to  respect.  All  in  fact  there  are  to  be  grati- 
fied are  the  individual  propensions,  and  the  principle  of 
self  love  itself,  which  is  only  a  general  desire  and  can  find  its 
gratification  only  in  the  gratification  of  particular  passions. 
Now  this  conception  of  happiness  is  substantially  the 
same  as  Kant's,  and  he  has  shown  us  that  such  happiness 
can  not  give  a  moral  motive.  And  this  principle  of  self- 
love,  for  Butler  one  of  the  chief  moral  principles,  is  the 
very  principle  which  Kant  rightly  excludes. 

It  may  be  important  to  note  that  this  conclusion  breaks 
down  the  distinction  which  Butler,  in  his  early  sermons, 
drew  between  self-love  and  the  particular  affections.  The 
difference  which  in  sermon  XI  Butler  takes  pains  to  state, 
the  only  one  again  his  conception  of  human  nature  will 
allow,  is  simply  this :  A  particular  affection  rests  in  a  cer- 
tain object  as  its  end.  This  object  is  never  pleasure,  as 
the   pleasure  results  only  because  the  object  is  suitable 


BUTLEE   AND    KANT.  47 

to  the  affection,  that  is,  is  the  end  in  which  the  affection 
rests.  Self-love  on  the  other  hand  has  no  particular  object 
or  end  in  which  it  rests,  but  as  love  of  happiness  which 
can  consist  only  in  particular  gratifications,  it  becomes  the 
love  of  the  pleasure  resulting  from  the  gratification  of  the 
particular  affections.  The  true  following  of  such  a  self- 
love,  then,  must  consist  in  such  a  course  as  will  yield  the 
greatest  pleasure,  and  so  will  find  its  true  end  in  the  grati- 
fication of  the  strongest  and  most  prevailing  passions. 
The  repression  of  such  passions  would  thus  be  a  violation 
of  the  principle  of  self-love,  and  so,  according  to  Butler, 
of  man's  whole  nature,  a  conclusion  in  direct  opposition 
not  only  to  what  we  have  seen  to  be  his  own  express  asser- 
tions, but  to  the  whole  spirit  of  his  own  better  teachings. 

Closely  connected  with  this  point  is  another  with 
regard  to  which  Butler  and  Kant  are  in  direct  opposition. 
Kant  says  that  in  this  world  vii-tue  and  happiness  have 
absolutely  no  connection,  while  Butler  everywhere  main^ 
tains  that  the  man  who  does  right  will  have  reasonable 
assurance  that  happiness  will  therebj^  follow.^  Butler's 
argument  would  seem  to  be  as  follows:  We  have  already 
seen  that  his  ultimate  standard  of  morality  is  an  external 
one,  viz :  happiness,  and  indeed  as  the  pupil  of  Shaf tsbury 
he  must  consider  the  purpose  of  creation  to  be  to  increase 
the  sum  of  happiness.  This  conception  in  substance  was 
that  God,  out  of  the  goodness  of  his  heart,  decided  to 
increase  the  total  sum  of  happiness,  and  for  that  purpose 
created  all  sentient  beings.  But  Butler  saw  well  enough 
that  the  whole  sum  of  happiness  can  be  increased  only 
through  the  happiness  of  the  individual,  and  hence  the 
purpose  of  every  one's  life  must  be  to  obtain  the  greatest 
possible  happiness  for  himself,  and  by  so  doing  he  will 
best  serve  the  purposes  of  the  Creator.     Thus  universal 


48  KANT   AND   BUTLER. 

happiness  is  ultimately  reduced  to  the  happiness  of  the 
individual,  and  actions  outwardly  correct  must  certainly 
lead  to  greater  happiness  because  such  happiness  must 
be  the  only  outward  standard  of  correctness.  Still  Butler 
saw  that  this  argument  is  not  sufficient,  because  we  can  not 
tell  what  the  outward  result  of  actions  will  be.  But  he 
found  an  easy  way  out  of  the  difficulty.  Conscience  within 
us  is  the  voice  of  God;  His  aim  is  to  increase  the  sum  of 
happiness,  and  so  if  we  follow  His  lead  we  may  be  sure  of 
obtaining  the  greatest  happiness. 

^^  Nothing  can  be  more  thorough  than  the  refutation 
which  Kant  gives  us  of  this  whole  conception.  With  him 
the  only  purpose  of  moral  conduct  is  the  realization  of  the 
Good  Will.  This  is  the  supreme  moral  principle.  The 
-^fc-will,  reason  as  practical  or  universal,  is  the  true  self  of 
man,  and  the  whole  end  or  purpose  of  his  life  is  the 
proper  development  of  this  self.  To  be  moral  he  must 
always  act  from  the  conception  of  what  this  true  self  is, 
and  this  conception  must  give  color,  meaning  and  dis- 
tinctive character  to  every  motive,  end  or  purpose  of  his 
action.  Thus  every  such  purpose  or  end  or  motive  must 
always  be  judged  from  its  inner  side,  from  the  side  of  the 
self,  from  that  conception  or  ideal  which  reason  seeks  to 
make  real,  and  the  moral  agent  is  moral  only  so  far  as  he  con- 
sciously seeks  through  his  actions  to  realize  the  true  ideal, 
which  in  Kant's  phrase  is  to  act  from  duty.  Now  we  have 
already  seen  in  our  discussion  of  Kant,  that  so  far  as  man 
seeks  merely  sensuous  gratification,  or  seeks  such  gratifica- 
tion as  Butler  conceived  to  constitute  happiness,  he  is  not 
acting  from  the  true  ideal,  is  not  acting  from  duty,  which 
is  respect  for  the  law  of  that  ideal,  but  is  seeking  merely 

)_j[ndividual  gratification,  and  his  actions  are  not  moral. 
Thus  Butler's  conception  of   happiness  is  not  the  true 


BUTLER    AND   KANT.  49 

moral  end  and  he  has  failed  to  find  any  true  basis  for 
morals.  Moreover  we  can  not  say  that  happiness,  as  he 
and  Kant  both  conceived  it,  will  necessarily  foUow  from 
moral  action.  For,  as  Kant  everywhere  argues,  so  far 
from  resulting  in  greater  gratification  of  the  inclinations, 
moral  conduct  may  have  no  such  result,  but  may,  and  in 
fact  will,  involve  the  very  opposite.  There  is  no  connec- 
tion, as  Kant  rightly  saw,  between  such  happiness  and 
morality.  Yet  it  is  curious  to  note  that  Kant  in  the  end 
resorted  to  just  Butler's  expedient,  and  conceived  that  God, 
though  in  some  other  world  than  this,  would  attach  happi- 
ness to  the  realization  of  the  Good  Will.* 

But  is  there  no  significance  in  the  fact  that  Butler 
everywhere,  and  Kant  ultimately,  seemed  to  feel  that 
happiness  must  in  some  way  be  connected  with  virtue? 
Both  were  in  fact  right  in  believing  that  happiness  and 
virtue  must  necessarily  go  together.  The  difficulty  in 
their  connection  arose  from  an  imperfect,  or  essentially 
untrue,  conception  of  happiness.  Yet  Kant  saw,  what  the 
conception  of  the  moral  law  as  the  true  law  of  man's 
nature  necessarily  implies,  that  with  the  realization  of  the 
good  will  as  the  true  self  there  results  a  true  self-satisfac- 
tion, such  that  '  even  the  epicurean  might  choose  the  moral 
life  as  the  happiest.'  Thus  Kant  practically  overcame  the 
difficulty,  and  had  he  realized  the  full  meaning  of  his  con- 
clusion, he  would  have  had  no  need  of  Divine  assistance, 
which  he  elsewhere  so  strenuously  rejected,  to  help  out 
his  ethical  theorj\  Happiness  as  true  self-satisfaction,  as 
he  in  substance  concluded,  is  the  necessary  result  of  true 
self-realization,  and  this  is  the  only  happiness  about 
which  we  need  to  concern  ourselves. 

♦See  Kant's  conception  of  the  Sumnium  Bonum.  It  is  important  to  remem- 
ber, however,  that  this  connection  of  happiness  with  morality  has  no  necessary 
connection  with  lusethic^jl  system  asa  whole,  or  with  its  fundamental  principles. 


50  KANT   AND   BUTLER. 

So  also  we  find,  that  Butler  everywhere,  but  especially  in 
his  Analogy,  is  confusing  with  his  explicit  theory  a  deeper, 
truer  conception  of  happiness  than  any  that  theory  can 
account  for.  "Virtue  as  such,"  he  tells  us,  "naturally 
procures  considerable  advantages  to  the  virtuous,  and  vice 
as  such  naturally  occasions  great  inconvenience  to  the 
vicious."  'Uneasiness'  or  'remorse'  follows  from  the  con- 
templation of  actions  as  'wrong  or  unreasonable,'  'inward 
security  and  peace  are  the  natural  attendants  of  innocence 
and  virtue.'  But  such  uneasiness  or  remorse  can  be  noth- 
ing but  the  constant  longing  of  the  moral  being  for  a 
truer  form  of  self  than  he  has  yet  realized,  or  the  natural 
disgust  with  self  for  the  conscious  violation  of  its  true 
laws.  So,  on  the  other  hand,  'inward  security  and  peace' 
are  only  the  self-satisfaction  resulting  from  the  truer  self 
which  in  virtuous  actions  has  been  realized.  Thus  the 
Analogy,  a  later  and  riper  book  than  the  sermons,  seems 
to  imply  a  much  truer  conception  of  human  nature, 
because  it  employs  a  truer  conception  of  human  happiness, 
a  conception  of  happiness  as  the  resulting  satisfaction  of 
conduct  in  harmony  with  the  true  law  of  self.  Yet  the  use 
which  Butler  makes  of  this  conception  shows  us  that  he 
has  really  made  no  great  advance  on  his  first  position. 
For  his  'uneasiness'  and  'peace'  are  presented  as  the  pun- 
ishment or  reward  of  vicious  or  virtuous  conduct,  as  the 
means  which  the  Moral  Euler  of  the  Universe  employs  for 
the  discipline  of  His  wayward  subjects.  The  same  motive 
of  action  is  still  presented,  to  avoid  wrong  for  the  sake  of 
escaping  punishment,  to  do  right  for  the  sake  of  the 
reward  or  gratification  to  follow;  so  Kant's  objections  still 
apply,  that  such  actions  are  not  moral  because  not  done 
from  a  true  conception  of  self,  that  is,  from  duty,  and  the 
self-satisfaction  which  Butler  attaches  to  them  could  not 
follow. 


BUTLER   AND   KANT.  51 

Finally  we  are  now  enabled  to  see  one  other  important 
and  fundamental  difference  between  Kant's  and  Butler's 
conceptions  of  virtue.  The  purpose  of  the  moral  being  is, 
according  to  Kant,  the  development  of  the  good  will,  true  self- 
realization,  realization  through  a  process.  Thus  there  comes 
into  view  the  notion  of  a  perfect  self  to  be  realized,  and  of 
progress  towards  a  final  end  of  perf e  ction.  But  this  end 
is  one  which  by  man  can  never  be  reached,  and  if  it  could 
he  would  cease  to  be  moral,  and  become  holy.  Thus  the 
notion  of  virtue  is  the  notion  of  this  progress  toward  per- 
fection, of  the  constant,  progressive  effort  by  which  man 
seeks  his  own  complete  self-realization  in  perfect  holiness. 
But  Butler's  conception  of  virtue  is,  from  his  conception 
of  human  nature,  necessarily  static.  Morality  can  consist 
only  in  maintaining  the  proper  relations  between  the 
various  parts  of  the  whole  system  which  man  is.  There 
being  no  true  whole,  no  true  self,  there  can  be  no  progress 
towards  self-realization.  To  maintain  among  all  the  vari- 
ous particular  appetites,  passions,  affections,  both  those 
that  look  to  self  and  those  that  look  to  others,  that  even 
balance  which  will  result  in  the  greatest  sum  of  gratifica- 
tions, must  be  the  highest  aim  of  the  moral  being. 

The  result  of  this  study  of  Butler's  ethics  may  seem 
for  the  most  part  only  disappointing.  For  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  single  point  that  the  moral  law  must  be  the 
law  of  man's  own  nature,  he  seems  scarcely  to  have 
reached  any  fundamental  ethical  principle.  Yet  the 
method  we  have  applied  to  him  has  not  been  a  true  test  of 
his  real  greatness.  To  understand  him  as  he  is,  and  to 
appreciate  the  real  significance  of  what  he  has  given  us, 
we  must  study  him  in  his  relation  to  his  times  and  to  what 
immediately  preceded  him.  This  has  been  no  part  of  our 
present  purpose,  yet  even  for  what  we  have  studied  him 
there  has  been  a  finer,  truer  spirit  in  the  man  than  the 
mere  analysis  of   his  writings  has  been  able  to  reflect. 


52  KANT   AND   BUTLER. 

From  an  ethical  point  of  view  we  may  say  of  him  what 
Matthew  Arnold  has  said  from  a  religious  (and  the  two 
are  not  really  separable),  "The  power  of  religion  which 
actuated  him  was,  as  is  the  case  with  so  many  of  us,  better, 
profounder,  and  happier  than  the  scheme  of  religion  which 
he  could  draw  out  in  his  books"  (Last  Essays  on  Church 
and  Religion,  p.  147. ),  and  in  almost  the  last  words  he  ever 
wrote,  he  has  expressed  what  must  be  the  only  true  spirit 
of  every  form  of  moral  endeavor.  "Hunger  and  thirst 
after  righteousness  till  filled  with  it  by  being  made  par- 
taker of  the  divine  nature." 

THESES. 

1.  1.  Kant  rightly  conceived  the  true  essence  of  mor- 
ality to  lie  in  the  universal  and  self-conscious  nature  of 
reason,  and  derived  therefrom  his  principles  of  duty,  his 
conception  of  Freedom,  and  of  the  Good  or  Autonomous 
Will.  Virtue  thus  consists  in  the  development  of  the  Good 
Will  and  the  moral  law  is  the  true  law  of  man's  nature. 

2.  His  error  consists  in  not  overcoming  the  unnatural 
opposition  between  Sense  and  Reason;  thus  he  failed  to 
realize  the  full  nature  of  human  desire  and  of  human 
motives,  and  rendered  both  Autonomy  and  Morality  im- 
possible of  achievement. 

II.  Butler  with  Kant  conceived  the  moral  law  as  the 
true  law  of  man's  nature  but  he  failed  to  grasp  the  full 
nature  of  reason  as  universal  and  self-conscious  and  so 
failed  to  find  any  true  basis  for  morality. 

III.  From  Butler's  conception  of  human  nature  mor- 
ality is  essentially  static  and  consists  in  maintaining  the 
proper  balance  and  subordination  among  the  various  pro- 
pensions  and  principles, 

With  Kant  Morality  is  essentially  progressive  and  con- 
sists in  the  constantly  fuller  realization  of  man's  true 
nature  and  his  continual  development  toward  human  per- 
fection or  holiness. 


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